CHAPTER XXI.

ORGANISATIONS.

THE power and practice of organisation among the lower animals includes a whole series of phenomena of the highest interest-phenomena that involve the possession and application, or exhibition, of the highest mental and moral faculties. Such phenomena are

1. Forms of government.

2. Respect for, and submission or obedience to, constituted authority.

3. The supremacy of strength, bodily or mental, or both conjoined, including the perception, recognition, and appreciation of superiority.

4. Union, combination, co-operation, concerted action for specific purposes, including compacts or agreements, and alliances or associations, offensive, defensive, or otherwise.

5. Division of labour, including taking turn in duty or playing parts in a performance.

6. Method, order or orderliness, regularity or system, including the classification of ranks, castes or clans in society; with promotion and deposition.

7. The force of discipline.

Writers on the habits of the lower animals have described various systems of government as existing among them, including the following:

1. The monarchical. Among certain animals there are kings and queens, with all the paraphernalia of royalty, such

as

a. Royal chambers or apartments.

b. Royal body-guard.

These kings and queens obviously vary in their status and functions, as illustrated by the very different positions occupied by

1. The king of the quails, of vultures, of herrings

(Houzeau, Watson).

2. The king and queen of certain Termites (Büchner). 3. Queen bees (Huber, Figuier).

The influence of the queen bee is in many respects a remarkable one. She leads or directs her subjects (Huber) just as other and male chiefs do their flocks or herds. Her absence or sterility leads to anarchy in the populace, to a general dissolution of society, marked by the loss of all activity, physical and mental, by hopelessness, the want of courage or spirit, the development of theft and rapine-in general terms, by utter demoralisation. Her disappearance, too, causes general emotion and commotion, aimless running about, idleness and apathy-in short, a kind of mental derangement for the time. The effect on her subjects is paralysing. Experimental excitement and calm may be produced at will by removing and replacing her. Joy and satisfaction, moreover, are produced by the receipt of a new queen. All this arises from the presence or absence of what Figuier calls a moral tie.' Just as among male leaders, rival bee queens contend for supremacy; their fights are characterised by great rage, animosity, fury or ferocity, are accompanied by general agitation or tumult in the bee community, and end in the reign of the victor (Huber).

This government of bees by a queen is one of the most striking instances among the lower animals of female supremacy. But it is not the only one. Figuier describes the queen bee as president of a republic, with female vice-presidents; and there are also among bees and ants amazons, female troops or soldiers (Westwood). According to Combe there are exceptional cases-as in goats-where the leader of a flock or herd is a female.

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Certain Termites, says Büchner, have a perfectly organised state, with king, queen,' and other ranks in society, and an elaborately constructed building for their residence.

In

its interior is situated a so-called royal residence, with chambers and galleries around for the attendants.'

2. The republican. Republics have been described in the ant and bee (Figuier), in horses, dogs, and other animals. The commonwealths of the street dogs of Constantinople, with their curious regulations, have been described quite recently by the 'Times' correspondent there,' as they have also formed the subject of remark by Watson and other writers. Communities or societies of wasps live on terms of equality; they are free citizens of free cities, with no paupers; there are no despots and no despotism, according to Westwood and Figuier. But the same form of government, which by one observer or writer is termed a monarchy, with a king or queen at its head, is by another described as a republic, with a male or female president. It is quite immaterial how we speak of this or that system of polity in this or that genus or species of animals. The essential feature-one of importance in many ways-is the government of a community or society, of a band or troop, flock or herd, family or other group of individuals, species or genera, large or small, by a leader or chief.

The consideration of this form of government embraces the following features of interest :

--

1. The principle of selection, and election or appoint

ment.

2. Competition and ambition for rule and their results. 3. The subjection of the weak to the strong in body, mind, will.

4. The use and abuse of authority, including the power of command.

5. The appreciation of insignia of office or status.

6. The value attached to the possession of power and place.

In various forms leaders, governors, chiefs, commanders, patriarchs, masters, rulers, or heads, are to be found in many social animals, directing and defending the groups into which they are divided. They occur, for instance, among or in wild, military, and pack horses, Eskimo dog teams, bands of smuggling dogs or of dogs in Eastern towns, such as Con1 During the Servo-Turkish war in January 1876.

stantinople, camels, deer, oxen, mules, sheep, elephants, buffalo, ass, kangaroo, goats, certain of the Quadrumana (such as the siamang gorilla, spider, howling, araguata, guereza, and other monkeys), cranes, swallows, cocks and hens. These leaders are, as a general rule, males of middle age, sometimes elderly or old, possessing the following qualifications for office :

1. Physical superiority; they are usually or frequently above the average in size and strength, being vigorous, robust, active, agile animals, that have proved themselves successful in combat and otherwise.

2. Mental superiority. They are distinguished, moreover, for their courage, cautiousness, sagacity, power of command, ability to act in emergency, so as to protect, defend, or direct their followers; for their experience; special knowledge of enemies or of ground; power of self-control, especially of control of temper; interest in the common weal; enterprise; ingenuity and perseverance in the overcoming of difficulties in other words, adaptiveness.

This superiority is conjunct, physical and mental; for a merely huge strong animal, without the requisite intelligence to adapt its strength to circumstances, would be useless as a leader. But the superiority of the chief is, as a rule, of such a character as to be conspicuous, and to command or secure on that account confidence on the one hand, and respect on the other. Confidence and respect in their turn beget obedience or submissiveness, so that, while all animals that possess leaders follow their lead both literally and figuratively, some do so only too implicitly-for instance, in the case of sheep that rush after their bell-wether to their own wholesale destruction.

Generally speaking, leaders are of the same species as the animals they command; belong, perhaps, to the same small family or group, as in the case of certain patriarchs or mere heads of families or tribes. But in other cases, the chief belongs to a different species or genus, and this category includes omnipotent man. Thus the axis deer sometimes leads mobs' of kangaroos in Australia. "The donkey in the district of Smyrna, in Broussa, and the Asiatic Olympus, in

Anatolia, and other parts of Asia Minor, is frequently employed as leader of a caravan of camels; for, contrary to the prejudices of the West, in Oriental lands Longears enjoys the reputation of being the most intelligent of hoofed beasts' (Hæckel). Mares are employed as leaders of droves of mules in Central America. The latter animals have a high respect for and pride in the horse as a 'distinguished relative;' hence they willingly accept a mare as their queen (Wood).

Man himself frequently becomes the leader of his flocks or herds, as in the case of shepherds in the East, who literally lead'-do not drive, as ours do-their flocks. Man is recognised literally and figuratively as its governor' by the dog; his right to command is freely acknowledged; the propriety of his orders or actions is, as a rule, not disputed. And it is important to note that in this case it sometimes, at least, happens that he gains and wields his wonderful power over other animals by the exercise of kindness, not of terrorism-by the supremacy of love, not of fear. Thus the command of the shepherd over his sheep in primitive countries, where the use of the sheep dog is unknown-for instance, in Palestine-is acquired by his constant association with his sheep, by his habitual kindly usage, whereby confidence in, and attachment to, his person or personality are produced.

Not only so, but man educates certain animals to be leaders and certain others to be followers; he trains the one to command, the other to obedience. He selects, for instance, certain rams or wethers, training them to command certain sheep, while he educates and accustoms the sheep to follow and obey the said leaders. The leader ram himself comes to understand and obey man's directions or commands, as given whether by signal or gesture, or in the form of verbal language, answering at once to his call; and, as the result of similar patient and kindly tuition, the whole of the flock learn to understand and obey the orders or directions of their wether (Youatt).

It is man, also, who selects the leaders in the case of Eskimo dog teams (Parry), and the horse-leaders of Eastern caravans (Macgregor) or of waggon teams (Pierquin).