Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution

It happened with Darwin's theory as it always happens with theories having any bearing upon human relations. Instead of widening it according to his own^ — hints, his followers narrowed it still more. And while Herbert Spencer, starting on independent but closely- allied lines, attempted to widen the inquiry into that great question, " Who are the fittest ? " especially in the appendix to the third edition of the Data of Ethus, the numberless followers of Darwin reduced the notion of struggle for existence to its narrowest limits. They came to conceive the animal world as a world of per- petual struggle among half-starved individuals, thirst- ing for one another's blood. They made modern literature resound with the war-cry of woe to the van- quished, as if it were the last word of modern biology. They raised the "pitiless" struggle for personal advantages to the height of a biological principle which man must submit to as well, under the menace of otherwise succumbing in a world based upon mutual extermination. Leaving aside the economists* who know of natural science but a few words borrowed from second-hand vulgarizers, we must recognize that even the most authorized exponents of Darwin's views did their best to maintain those false ideas. In fact, if we take Huxley, who certainly is considered as one of the ablest exponents of the theory of evolution, were we not taught by him, in a paper on the ' Struggle for Existence and its Bearing upon Man,' that,

" from the point of view of the moralist, the animal world is on about the same level as a gladiators' show. The creatures are fairly well treated, and set to fight; whereby the strongest, the swiftest, and the cunningesf live to fight another day. The spectator has no need to turn his thumb down, as no quarter is given." Or, further down in the same article, did he not tell us that, as among animals, so among primitive men, "the weakest and stupidest went to the wall, while the toughest and shrewdest, those who were best fitted to cope with their circumstances, but not the best in another way, survived. Life was a continuous free fight, and beyond the limited and temporary relations of the family, the Hobbesian war of each against all was the normal state of existence." i

In how far this view of nature is supported by fact, will be seen from the evidence which will be here sub- mitted to the reader as regards the animal world, and as regards primitive man. But it may be remarked at once that Huxley's view of nature had as little claim to be taken as a scientific deduction as the opposite view of Rousseau, who saw in nature but love, peace, and harmony destroyed by the accession of man. In fact, the first walk in the forest, the first observation upon any animal society, or even the perusal of any serious work dealing with animal life (D'Orbigny's, Audubon's, Le Vaillant's, no matter which), cannot but set the naturalist thinking about the part taken by social life in the life of animals, and prevent him from seeing in Nature nothing but a field of slaughter, just as this would prevent him from seeing in Nature nothing but harmony and peace. Rousseau had committed the error of excluding the beak-and-claw fight from his thoughts ; and Huxley committed the opposite error ; but neither Rousseau's optimism nor Huxley's pessimism can be accepted as an impartial interpretation of nature.

(As soon as we study animals — not in laboratories and museums only, but in the forest and the prairie, in the steppe and the mountains — we at once perceive that though there is an immense amount of warfare and extermination going on amidst various species, and especially amidst various classes of animals, there is, at the same time, as much, or perhaps even more, of mutual support, mutual aid, and mutual defence amidst animals belonging to the same species or, at least, to the same society. ^Sociability; is_a^jnuch a law of jiature as mutual struggle. Of course it would be extremely difficult to estimate, however roughly,

the relative numerical importance of both these series of facts. But if we resort to an indirect test, and ask ■ Nature : " Who are the fittest : those who are con- tinually at war with each other, or those who support one another ? " we at once see that those animals which acquire habits of mutual aid are undoubtedly the fittest. They have more chances to survive, and they attain, in their respective classes, the highest development of intelligence and bodily organization. If the numberless facts which can be brought forward to support this view are taken into account, we may safely say that mutual aid is as much a law of animal life as mutual struggle, but that, as a factor of evolution, it most probably has a far greater importance, inas- much as it favours the development of such habits and characters as insure the maintenance and further development of the species, together with the greatest amount of welfare and enjoyment of life for the individual, with the least waste of energy.

Of the scientific followers of Darwin, the first, as far as I know, who understood the full purport of Mutual Aid as a law of Nature and the chief factor of evolution, was a well-known Russian zoologist, the late Dean of the St. Petersburg University, Professor Kessler. He developed his ideas in an address which he delivered in January 1880, a few months before his death, at a Congress of Russian naturalists ; but, like so many good things published in the Russian tongue only, that remarkable address remains almost entirely un- known.^

1 Leaving aside the pre-Darwinian writers, like Toussenel Fde and many others, several works containing many striking instances of mutual aid— chiefly, however, illustrating animal intelligence- were issued previously to that date. I lyiay mention those of ■Houzeau, Lesfacultes tnentales des anhnaux, 2 vols., Brussels, 1872 ■ "As a zoologist of old standing," he felt bound to protest against the abuse of a term — the struggle for existence — borrowed from zoology, or, at least, against overrating its importance. Zoology, he said, and those sciences which deal with man, continually insist upon what they call the pitiless law of struggle for existence. But they forget the existence of another law which may be described as the law of mutual aid, which law, at least for the animals, is far more essential than the former. He pointed out how the need of leaving progeny necessarily brings animals together, and, " the more the individuals keep together, the more they mutually support each other, and the more are the chances of the species for surviving, as well as for making further progress in its intellectual develop- ment." "All classes of animals," he continued, "and

especially the higher ones, practise mutual aid," and he illustrated his idea by examples borrowed from the life of the burying beetles and the social life of birds and some mammalia. The examples were few, as L. Biichner's Aus dent Geistesleben der Thiere, 2nd ed. in 1877; and Maximilian Party's Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere, Leipzig, 1876. Espinas published his most remarkable work, Les Societes animales, in 1877, and in that work he pointed out the importance of animal societies, and their bearing upon the preservation of species, and entered upon a most valuable discussion of the origin of societies. In fact, Espinas's book contains all that has been written since upon mutual aid, and many good things besides. If I nevertheless make a special mention of Kessler's address, it is because he raised mutual aid to the height of a law much more important in evolution than the law of mutual struggle. The same ideas were developed next year (in April 1881) by J. Lanessan in a lecture published in 1882 under this title : La lutte pour P existence et l' association pour la lutte. G. Romanes's capital work. Animal Intelligence, was issued in 1882, and followed next year by the Mental Evolution in Animals. About the same time (1883), Biichner published another work, Liebe und Liebes-Leben in der Thierwelt, a second edition of which was issued in 1885. The idea, as seen, was in the air.

might have been expected in a short opening address, but the chief points were clearly stated ; and, after mentioning that in the evolution of mankind mutual aid played a still more prominent part, Professor Kessler concluded as follows : — " I obviously do not deny the struggle for existence, but I maintain that the progressive development of the animal kingdom, and especially of mankind, is favoured much more by mutual support than by mutual struggle. . . . All organic beings have two essential needs : that of nutrition, and that of propagating the species. The former brings them to a struggle and to mutual extermination, while the needs of maintaining the species bring them to approach one another and to support one another. But I am inclined to think that in the evolution of the organic world — in the progressive modification of organic beings — mutual support among indi- viduals plays a much more important part than their mutual struggle." 1

The correctness of the above views struck most of the Russian zoologists present, and Syevertsoff, whose work is well known to ornithologists and geographers, supported them and illustrated them by a few more examples. He mentioned some of the species of falcons which have " an almost ideal organization for robbery," and nevertheless are in decay, while other species of falcons, which practise mutual help, do thrive. " Take, on the other side, a sociable bird, the duck," he said ; " it is poorly organized on the whole, but it practises mutual support, and it almost invades the earth, as may be judged from its numberless varieties a|id species."

The readiness of the Russian zoologists to accept Kessler's views seems quite natural, because nearly all of them have had opportunities of studying the 1 Memoirs {Trudy) of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists vol. xi. i88o. ' animal world in the wide uninhabited regions of Northern Asia and East Russia ; and it is impossible to study like regions without being brought to the same ideas. I recollect myself the impression pro- duced upon me by the animal world of Siberia when I explored the Vitim regions in the company of so accomplished a zoologist as my friend Polyakoff was. We both were under the fresh impression of the Origin of Species, but we vainly looked for the keen competition between animals of the same species which the reading of Darwin's work had prepared us to expect, even after taking into account the remarks of the third chapter (p. 54). We saw plenty of adapt- ations for struggling, very often in common, against the adverse circumstances of climate, or against various enemies, and Polyakoff wrote many a good page upon the mutual dependency of carnivores, ruminants, and rodents in their geographical distribution ; we wit- nessed numbers of facts of mutual support, especially during the migrations of birds and ruminants ; but even in the Amur and Usuri regions, where animal life swarms in abundance, facts of real competition and struggle between higher animals of the same species came very seldom under my notice, though I eagerly searched for them. The same impression appears in the works of most Russian zoologists, and it probably explains why Kessler's ideas were so welcomed -by„ the Russian Darwinists^ whilst-Uke-Jd^as-affe-^tet— iji vogue amidst_ riie_ followers of Darwin in Western Europe.

The first thing which strikes us as soon as we begin studying the struggle for existence under both its aspects — direct and metaphorical — is the abundance quarrelling as to which of them will enjoy the privilege of laying its eggs in the buried corpse. And when Gleditsch attached a dead bird to a cross made out of two sticks, or suspended a toad to a stick planted in the soil, the little beetles would in the same friendly way combine their intelligences to overcome the artifice of Man. The same combination of efforts has been noticed among the dung-beetles.

Even among animals standing at a somewhat lower stage of organization we may find like example;s. Some knd -crabs of the West Indies and North America combine in large swarms in order to travel to the sea and to deposit therein their spawn ; and each such migration implies concert, co-operation, and mutual support. As to the big Molucca crab [Limulus), I was struck (in 1882, at the Brighton Aquarium) with the extent of mutual assistance which these clumsy animals are capable of bestowing upon a comrade in case of need. One of them had fallen upon its back in a corner of the tank, and its heavy saucepan-like carapace prevented it from returning to its natural position, the more so as there was in the corner an iron bar which rendered the task still more difficult. Its comrades came to the rescue, and for one hour's time I watched how they endeavoured to help their fellow-prisoner. They came two at once, pushed their friend from beneath, and after strenuous efforts suc- ceeded in lifting it upright; but then the iron bar would prevent them from achieving the work of rescue, and the crab would again heavily fall upon its back. After many attempts, one of the helpers would go in the depth of the tank and bring two other crabs, which would begin with fresh forces the same pushing and lifting of their helpless comrade. We stayed in the

Aquarium for more than two hours, and, when leaving we again came to cast a glance upon the tank : th work of rescue still continued ! Since I saw that, cannot refuse credit to the observation quoted by D Erasmus Darwin— namely, that "the common era during the moulting season stations as sentmel a unmoulted or hard-shelled individual to prevent marir enemies from injuring moulted individuals in the unprotected state." ^ Facts illustrating mutual aid amidst the termites, th ants, and the bees are so well known to the gener; reader, especially through the works of Romane L. Buchner, and Sir John Lubbock, that I may lim my remarks to a very few hints. ^ If we take an ant nest, we not only see that every description of work- rearing of progeny, foraging, "building, rearing ( aphides, and so on — is performed according to th principles of voluntary mutual aid ; we must als recognize, with Forel, that the chief, the fundament; feature of the life of many species of ants is the fa( and the obligation for every ant of sharing its foo( already swallowed and partly digested, with ever member of the community which may apply for i Two ants belonging to two different species or to tw hostile nests, when they occasionally meet togethe will avoid each other. But two ants belonging to th same nest or to the same colony of nests will approac

2 Pierre Ruber's Les fourmis indigenes, Gdnbve, 1861; Fore Recherches sur les fourmis de la Suisse, Zurich, 1874, and J. T. Mo gridge's HarvesHng Ants and Trapdoor Spiders, London, 1873 ar 1874, ought to be in the hands of every boy and girl. See alsc Blanchard's Mktamorphoses des Insectes, Paris, 1868 ; J. H. Fabn Souvenirs entomologiques, Paris, 1886 ; Ebrard's Etudes des moeurs a fourmis, G^nfeve, 1864; Sir John Lubbock's Ants, Bees, and Wasi and so on. ^

each other, exchange a few movements with the antennae, and " if one of them is hungry or thirsty, and especially if the other has its crop full ... it immediately asks for food." The individual thus requested never refuses ; it sets apart its mandibles, takes a proper position, and regurgitates a drop of transparent fluid which is licked up by the hungry ant. Regurgitating food for other ants is so prominent a feature in the life of ants (at liberty), and it so constantly recurs both for feeding hungry comrades and for feeding larv^, that Forel considers the di- gestive tube of the ants as consisting of two different parts, one of which, the posterior, is for the special use of the individual, and the other, the anterior part, is chiefly for the use of the community. If an ant which has its crop full has 'been selfish enough to refuse feeding a comrade, it will be treated as an enemy, or even worse. If the refusal has been made while its kinsfolk were fighting with some other species, they will fall back upon the greedy individual with greater vehemence than even upon the enemies themselves. And if an ant has not refused to feed another ant belonging to an enemy species, it will be treated by the kinsfolk of the latter as a friend. All this is con- firmed by most accurate observation and decisive experiments.^

In that immense division of the animal kingdom which embodies more than one thousand species, and is so numerous that the Brazilians pretend that Brazil belongs to the ants, not to men, competition amidst the members of the same nest, or the colony of nests, ^ Ford's Recherches, pp. 244, 275, 278. Ruber's description of the process is admirable. It also contains a hint as to the possible origin of the instinct (popular edition, pp. 158, 160). See Appendix II.

does not exist. However terrible the wars between different species, and whatever the atrocities committed at war-time, mutual aid within the community, self- devotion grown into a habit, and very often self- sacrifice for the common welfare, are the rule. The ants and termites have renounced the " Hobbesian war," and they are the better for it. Their wonderful nests, their buildings, superior in relative size to those of man; their paved roads and overground vaulted galleries ; their spacious halls and granaries ; their corn-fields, harvesting and "malting" of grain ; ^ their rational methods of nursing their eggs and larvae, and of building special nests for rearing the aphides whom Linnaeus so picturesquely described as " the cows of the ants" ; and, finally, their courage, pluck, and superior intelligence — all these are the natural outcome of the mutual aid which they practise at every stage of their busy and laborious lives. That mode of life also necessarily resulted in the development of another essential feature of the life of ants : the immense development of individual initiative which, in its turn, evidently led to the development of that high and varied intelligence which cannot but strike the human observer.2

1 The agriculture of the ants is so wonderful that for a long time It has been doubted. The fact is now so well proved by Mr Moggndge, Dr. Lincecum, Mr. MacCook, Col. Sykes and Dr' Jerdon, that no doubt is possible. See an excellent summary of evidence m Mr. Romanes;s work. See also Die Pihgaerten einiger Sud-Amertkamschen Ametsen by Alf. Moeller, in Schimper's BoL. Mttth. aus den Tropen, vi. 1893. ^ .t^i«t»«» 2 This second principle was not recognized at once. Former observers often spoke of kmgs, queens, managers, and so on ■ hnt smce Huber and Forel have published their minute observations no doubt IS possible as to the free scope left for every indiviH.'.al'^ initiative in whatever the ants do, including their wars

we know about the ants and the termites, we already might safely conclude that mutual aid (which leads to mutual confidence, the first condition for courage) and individual initiative (the first condition for intellectual progress)' are two factors infinitely more important than mutual struggle in the evolution of the animal kingdom. In fact, the ant thrives without having any of the^ "protective" features which cannot be dispensed with by animals living an isolated life. Its colour renders it conspicuous to its enemies, and the lofty nests of many species are conspicuous in the meadows and forests. It is not protected by a hard carapace, and its stinging apparatus, however dangerous when hundreds of stings are plunged into the flesh of an animal, is not of a great value for individual defence ; while the eggs and larvae of the ants are a dainty for a great number of the inhabitants of the forests. And yet the ants, in their thousands, are not much destroyed by the birds, not even by the ant-eaters, and they are dreaded by most stronger insects. When Forel emptied a bagful of ants in a meadow, he saw that " the crickets ran away, abandoning their holes to be sacked by the ants ; the grasshoppers and the crickets fled in all directions ; the spiders and the beetles abandoned their prey in order not to become prey themselves;" even the nests of the wasps were taken by the ants, after a battle during which many ants perished for the safety of jhe commonwealth. Even the swiftest insects cannot escape, and Forel often saw butterflies, gnats, flies, and so on, surprised and killed by the ants. Their force is in mutual support and mutual confidence. And if the ant — apart from the still higher developed termites — stands at the very top of the whole class of insects for its intellectual capacities ; if its courage is

only equalled by the most courageous vertebrates ; and if its brain — to use Darwin's words — " is one of the most marvellous atoms of matter in the world, perhaps more so than the brain of man," is it not due to the fact that mutual aid has entirely taken the place oi mutual struggle in the communities of ants ? The same is true as regards the bees. These small insects, which so easily might become the prey of so many birds, and whose honey has so many admirers in all classes of animals from the beetle to the bear, also have none of the protective features derived from mimicry or otherwise, without which an isolatedly- living insect hardly could esc&pe wholesale destruction ; and yet, owing to the mutual aid they practise, they obtain the wide extension which we know and the intelligence we admire. By working in common they multiply their individual forces ; by resorting to a temporary division of labour combined with the capacity of each bee to perform every kind of work when required, they attain such a degree of well-being and safety as no isolated animal can ever expect to achieve however strong or well-armed it may be. In their combinations they are often more successful than man, when he neglects to take advantage of a well-planned mutual assistance. Thus, when a new swarm of bees is going to leave the hive in search of a new abode, a number of bees will make a preliminary exploration of the neighbourhood, and if they discover a convenient dwelling-place— say, an old basket, or anything of the kind— they will take possession of it, clean it, and guard it, sometimes for a whole week', till the swarm comes to settle therein. But how many human settlers will perish in new countries simply for not having understood the necessity of combinino- their

efforts ! By combining their individual intelligences they succeed in coping with adverse circumstances, even quite unforeseen and unusual, like those bees of the Paris Exhibition which fastened with their resinous propolis the shutter to a glass-plate fitted in the wall of their hive. Besides, they display none of the sanguinary proclivities and love of useless fighting with which many writers so readily endow animals. The sentries which guard the entrance to the hive pitilessly put to death the robbing bees which attempt entering the hive ; but those stranger bees which come to the hive by mistake are left unmolested, especially if they come laden with pollen, or are yoimg individuals which can easily go astray. There is no more warfare than is strictly required.

The sociability of the bees is the more instructive as predatory instincts and laziness continue to exist among the bees as well, and reappear each time that their growth is favoured by some circumstances. It is well known that there always are a number of bees which prefer a life of robbery to the laborious life of a worker ; and that both periods of scarcity and periods of an unusually rich supply of food lead to an increase of the robbing class. When our crops are in and there remains but little to gather in our meadows and fields, robbing bees become of more frequent occur- rence ; while, on the other side, about the sugar planta- tions of the West Indies and the sugar refineries of Europe, robbery, laziness, and very often drunkenness become quite usual with the bees. /We thus see that anti-social instincts continue to exist amidst the bees as well ; but natural selection continually must eliminate them, because in the long run the practice of solidarity proves much more advantageous to the species than

the development of individuals endowed with predatory inclinations. The cunningest and the shrewdest are eliminated in favour of those who understand the advantages of sociable life and mutual support. Certainly, neither the ants, nor the bees, nor even the termites, have risen to the conception of a higher solidarity embodying the whole of the species. In that respect they evidently have not attained a degree of development which we do not find even among our political, scientific, and religious leaders. Their social instincts hardly extend beyond the limits of the hive or the nest. However, colonies of no less than two hundred nests, belonging to two different species (^For- mica exsecta and F. pressilabris) have been described by Forel on Mount Tendre and Mount Saleve ; and Forel maintains that each member of these colonies recognizes every other member of the colony, and that they all take part in common defence ; while in Penn- sylvania Mr. MacCook saw a whole nation of from 1, 600 to 1,700 nests of the mound-making ant, all living in perfect intelligence ; and Mr. Bates has described the hillocks of the termites covering large surfaces in the "campos" — some of the nests being the refuge of two or three different species, and most of them being connected by vaulted galleries or arcades.^ Some steps towards the amalgamation of larger divisions of the species for purposes of mutual pro- tection are thus met with even among the invertebrate animals.

Going now over to higher animals, we find far more mstances of undoubtedly conscious mutual help for all possible purposes, though we must recognize at once 1 H. W. Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 59 seq that our knowledge even of the life of higher animals still remains very imperfect. A large number of facts have been accumulated by first-rate observers, but there are whole divisions of the animal kingdom of which we know almost nothing. Trustworthy infor- mation as regards fishes is extremely scarce, partly owing to the difficulties of observation, and partly because no proper attention has yet been paid to the subject. As to the mammalia, Kessler already re- marked how little we know about their manners of life. Many of them are nocturnal in their habits ; others conceal themselves underground ; and those ruminants whose social life and migrations offer the greatest interest do not let man approach their herds. It is chiefly upon birds that we have the widest range of information, and yet the social life of very many species remains but imperfectly known. Still, we need not complain about the lack of well-ascertained facts, as will be seen from the following.

I need not dwell upon the associations of male and female for rearing their offspring, for providing it with food during their first steps in life, or for hunting in common ; though it may be mentioned by the way that such associations are the rule even with the least sociable carnivores and rapacious birds ; and that they derive a special interest from being the field upon which tenderer feelings develop even amidst other- wise most cruel animals. It may also be added that the rarity of associations larger than that of the family among the carnivores and the birds of prey, though mostly being the result of their very modes of feeding, can also be explained to some extent as a consequence of the change produced in the animal world by the rapid increase of mankind. At any rate it is worthy

of note that there are species living a quite isolate( life in densely-inhabited regions, while the same species or their nearest congeners, are gregarious in unin habited countries. Wolves, foxes, and several bird of prey may be quoted as instances in point. However, associations which do not extend beyonc the family bonds are of relatively small importance ii our case, the more so as we know numbers of associ ations for more general purposes, such as hunting mutual protection, and even simple enjoyment of life Audubon already mentioned that eagles occasionallj associate for hunting, and his description of the twc bald eagles, male and female, hunting on the Missis- sippi, is well known for its graphic powers. But one of the most conclusive observations of the kind belongs to Syevertsoff. Whilst studying the fauna of the Russian Steppes, he once saw an eagle belonging to an altogether gregarious species (the white-tailed eagle, Haliaetos albicilld) rising high in the air ; for half-an- hour it was describing its wide circles in silence when at once its piercing voice was heard. Its cry was soon answered by another eagle which approached it, and was followed by a third, a fourth, and so on, till nine or ten eagles came together and soon disappeared. In the afternoon, Syevertsoff went to the place whereto he saw the eagles flying; concealed by one of the undulations of the Steppe, he approached them, and discovered that they had gathered around the corpse of a horse. , The old ones, which, as a rule, begin the meal first— such are their rules of propriety— already were sittmg upon the haystacks of the neighbourhood and kept watch, while the younger ones were continu- ing the meal, surrounded by bands of crows. From this and like observations, Syevertsoff concluded that

the white-tailed eagles combine for hunting ; when they all have risen to a great height they are enabled, if they are ten, to survey an area of at least twenty- five miles square ; and as soon as any one has dis- covered something, he warns the others.^ Of course, it might be argued that a simple instinctive cry of the first eagle, or even its movements, would have had the same effect of bringing several eagles to the prey; but in this case there is strong evidence in favour of mutual warning, because the ten eagles came together before descending towards the prey, and Syevertsoff had later on several opportunities of ascertaining that the white- tailed eagles always assemble for devouring a corpse, and that some of them (the younger ones first) always' keep watch while the others are eating. In fact, the white-tailed eagle — one of the bravest and best hunters — is a gregarious bird altogether, and Brehm says that when kept in captivity it very soon contracts an attach- ment to its keepers.

Sociability is a common feature with very many other birds of prey. The Brazilian kite, one of the most " impudent " robbers, is nevertheless a most sociable bird. Its hunting associations have been described by Darwin and other naturalists, and it is a fact that when it has seized upon a prey which is too big, it calls together five or six friends to carry it away. After a busy day, when these kites retire for their night-rest to a tree or to the tjushes, they always gather in bands, sometimes coming together from distances of ten or more miles, and they often are joined by several other 'vultures, especially the perc- nopters, "their true friends," D'Orbigny says. In

1 N. Syevertsoff, Periodical Phenomena in the Life of Mammalia, Birds, and Reptiles of Voronije, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian). another continent, in the Transcaspian deserts, they have, according to Zarudnyi, the same habit of nesting together. The sociable vulture, one of the strongest vultures, has received its very name from its love of society. They live in numerous bands, and decidedly enjoy society ; numbers of them join in their high flights for sport. " They live in very good friendship," Le Vaillant says, "and in the same cave I sometimes found as many as three nests dose together." ^ The Urubii vultures of Brazil are as, or perhaps even more, sociable than rooks. 2 The little Egyptian vultures live in close friendship. They play in bands in the air, they come together to spend the night, and in the morning they all go together to search for their food, and never does the slightest quarrel arise among them ; such is the testimony of Brehm, who had plenty of opportunities of observing their life. The red-throated falcon is also met with in numerous bands in the forests of Brazil, and the kestrel {Tinnunculus cenchris), when it has left Europe, and has reached in the winter the prairies and forests of Asia, gathers in numerous societies. In the Steppes of South Russia it is (or rather was) so sociable that Nordmann saw them in numerous bands, with other falcons {Falco tinnunculus, F. cesulon, and F. subbuteo), coming together every fine afternoon about four o'clock, and enjoying their sports till late in the night. They set off flying, all at once, in a quite straight line, towards some determined point, and, having reached it, immediately returned over the same line, to repeat the same flight. ^