I894-] 



THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



Africa, quaggas and zebras, are all social animals. Though 

 usually trusting to speedy flight, they in case of emergency 

 boldly resist attack ; the adults will form in a circle round the 

 young, and with well-placed kicks discomfit most antagonists ; when 

 a herd is attacked by wolves the stallions also use their teeth, 

 endeavouring to seize the foe by the nape of the neck, then lifting him 

 up and dashing him to the ground preparatory to trampling him to 

 death. It cannot be said that the general intelligence of the wild 

 horses or their senses, save that of hearing, are acute, and it would 

 appear that in this group sociality is principally maintained by the 

 pressure of carnivorous enemies. 



The somewhat distant cousins of the horses which constitute the 

 rhinoceros family are all very large and powerful beasts ; several of 

 the species are of savage and solitary habits, but one African species 

 (Rhinoceros sinius) is of a more pacific temperament, and often grazes in 

 large herds on the plains of South Central Africa. 



In the order Hyracoidea, to which the cony of Scripture belongs, it 

 and two other species live in large numbers in burrows amongst rocky 

 ground. They are mostly gentle, cautious and timid creatures, the 

 only benefit they derive from their gregarious habit being that which 

 arises from the warning cries uttered by the first to perceive an 

 approaching enemy, whereupon all seek shelter. 



Both our modern species of Proboscideans, the Indian and African 

 elephants, live in herds which are sometimes very numerous ; in this 

 they resemble their extinct relatives the mammoths. The elephants 

 surpass their distant relatives the ruminants both in intelligence and in 

 sociality, and it would seem that this latter quality has been developed 

 rather as an expansion of family affection and sympathy from within 

 than as a result of the attacks of carnivores from without, for these 

 giants even singly have little to fear from the fiercest of the larger cats. 



Amongst the marine herbivorous mammals which constitute the order 

 Sirenia, the dugongs are gregarious ; feeding in numerous herds on sea- 

 weeds, and sometimes migrating also in large numbers, they yet can 

 scarcely be said to have risen to the social level. In this respect they 

 are far surpassed by some of their distant relatives, the Cetaceans, 

 which, though not very intelligent animals, yet in some species are 

 distinctly social. The caaing whale, shoals of which are often stranded 

 on the coasts of our northern islands, exhibits sympathy with, and 

 affection for, its comrades ; a wounded one is surrounded by others, 

 which will not leave it even when themselves attacked, whilst the blind 

 confidence with which the shoal follow their leaders is frequently fatal 

 to them. These are peaceful animals. Nearly allied to them is another 

 species equally social, but much more active, and of a ferocious dis- 

 position. The killer-whale, the tyrant of the northern seas, hunts in 



