Evolution Social and OrganicLewis, Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow)
Philosophy
Evolution Social and Organic
Lewis, Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow)
Evolution; Socialism; Sociology
With the parrot mutual aid is developed to such an extent that
Kropotkin places it “at the very top of the whole feathered world
for the development of its intelligence.” The white cockatoos of
Australia, in raiding a crop, mutually aid each other so shrewdly as
to “baffle all stratagems” to thwart them. “Before starting to plunder
a cornfield, they first send out a reconnoitering party which occupies
the highest trees in the vicinity of the field, while other scouts
perch upon the intermediate trees between the field and the forest and
transmit signals. If the report runs ‘all right,’ a score of cockatoos
will separate from the bulk of the band, take a flight in the air,
and then fly towards the trees nearest to the field. They also will
scrutinize the neighborhood for a long while, and only then will give
the signal for general advance, after which the whole band starts at
once and plunders the field in no time.”
Mutual aid is very conspicuous among pelicans. “They always go fishing
in numerous bands and after having chosen an appropriate bay, they form
a wide half circle in face of the shore, and narrow it by paddling
towards the shore, catching all the fish that happen to be enclosed
in the circle. On narrow rivers and canals they even divide into two
parties, each of which draws up on a half circle, and both paddle to
meet each other, just as if two parties of men dragging two long nets
should advance to capture all the fish taken between the nets when both
parties come to meet.”
Our familiar friend, the house sparrow, is not overlooked and is said
to have practiced mutual aid to such an extent as to be recognized even
by the ancient Greeks. Kropotkin quotes from memory, the Greek Orator
who exclaimed: “While I am speaking to you a sparrow has come to tell
other sparrows that a slave has dropped on the floor a sack of corn,
and they all go there to feed on the grain.” Sparrows also maintain
social discipline: “If a lazy sparrow intends appropriating the nest a
comrade is building, or even steals from it a few sprays of straw, the
group interferes against the lazy comrade.” Kropotkin presents a number
of well authenticated observations of the great compassion and sympathy
prevailing among those wild creatures, which are popularly supposed to
be always flying at each others’ throats: J. C. Woods’ narrative “of a
weasel which came to pick up and carry away an injured comrade;” Brehm,
who “himself saw two crows feeding in a hollow tree a third crow which
had a wound several weeks old.” Captain Stansbury, on his journey to
Utah, as quoted by Darwin, “saw a blind pelican which was fed, and well
fed, by other pelicans upon fishes which had to be brought a distance
of thirty miles.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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