Mutual Aid: A Factor of EvolutionKropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Science
Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution
Kropotkin, Petr Alekseevich, kniaz
Cooperation; Social groups; Social institutions
9. This second principle was not recognized at once. Former observers
often spoke of kings, queens, managers, and so on; but since Huber and
Forel have published their minute observations, no doubt is possible as
to the free scope left for every individual's initiative in whatever the
ants do, including their wars.
10. H.W. Bates, The Naturalist on the River Amazons, ii. 59 seq.
11. N. Syevertsoff, Periodical Phenomena in the Life of Mammalia, Birds,
and Reptiles of Voroneje, Moscow, 1855 (in Russian).
12. A. Brehm, Life of Animals, iii. 477; all quotations after the French
edition.
13. Bates, p. 151.
14. Catalogue raisonne des oiseaux de la faune pontique, in Demidoff's
Voyage; abstracts in Brehm, iii. 360. During their migrations birds of
prey often associate. One flock, which H. Seebohm saw crossing the
Pyrenees, represented a curious assemblage of "eight kites, one crane,
and a peregrine falcon" (The Birds of Siberia, 1901, p. 417).
15. Birds in the Northern Shires, p. 207.
16. Max. Perty, Ueber das Seelenleben der Thiere (Leipzig, 1876), pp.
87, 103.
17. G. H. Gurney, The House-Sparrow (London, 1885), p. 5.
18. Dr. Elliot Coues, Birds of the Kerguelen Island, in Smithsonian
Miscellaneous Collections, vol. xiii. No. 2, p. 11.
19. Brehm, iv. 567.
20. As to the house-sparrows, a New Zealand observer, Mr. T.W. Kirk,
described as follows the attack of these "impudent" birds upon an
"unfortunate" hawk.--"He heard one day a most unusual noise, as though
all the small birds of the country had joined in one grand quarrel.
Looking up, he saw a large hawk (C. gouldi--a carrion feeder) being
buffeted by a flock of sparrows. They kept dashing at him in scores, and
from all points at once. The unfortunate hawk was quite powerless. At
last, approaching some scrub, the hawk dashed into it and remained
there, while the sparrows congregated in groups round the bush, keeping
up a constant chattering and noise" (Paper read before the New Zealand
Institute; Nature, Oct. 10, 1891).
21. Brehm, iv. 671 seq.
22. R. Lendenfeld, in Der zoologische Garten, 1889.
CHAPTER II
MUTUAL AID AMONG ANIMALS (continued)
Migrations of birds. Breeding associations. Autumn societies. Mammals:
small number of unsociable species. Hunting associations of wolves,
lions, etc. Societies of rodents; of ruminants; of monkeys. Mutual Aid
in the struggle for life. Darwin's arguments to prove the struggle for
life within the species. Natural checks to over-multiplication. Supposed
extermination of intermediate links. Elimination of competition in
Nature.
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