(8) Monkeys of most species, whether in the New World or in the Old, are social, living in bands of from ten to fifty or more, and may co-operate occasionally in mutual defence or in keeping watch. Baboons, indeed, are seen in herds of several hundreds; and they are credibly reported to co-operate in raiding plantations, and in defending themselves against leopards, other baboons and even human hunters.[6] Gibbons, again, are social, going in bands to the number of fifty. But the large anthropoids live only in families—the male orang being even of a somewhat solitary habit; three or four families of chimpanzees may for a time associate together. Man, however, is everywhere—with a few doubtful exceptions, probably degenerate—both social and co-operative; and the purpose of his co-operation at the level of the Australian or the Semang is instructive. It is not, as we might suppose, in industry, but in hunting, war, or tribal ceremonies that tribesmen work together—the last no doubt of comparatively recent origin: so that a few thousand years ago there was no co-operation except hunting and war (which come to the same thing). That the large anthropoids are neither gregarious nor co-operative follows from their having no task in which co-operation would be useful, no common purpose: they are able alone to defend themselves and their families; and when families range apart through the woods their food is in better supply. But the ancestor of Man found an object for association and co-operation in the chase. Spencer, indeed, says that a large carnivore, capable of killing its own prey, profits by being solitary; and this may be true where game is scarce: in the Oligocene and Miocene periods game was not scarce. Moreover, when our ape first pursued game, especially big game (not being by ancient adaptation in structure and instinct a carnivore), he may have been, and probably was, incapable of killing enough prey single-handed; and, if so, he will have profited by becoming both social and co-operative as a hunter, like the wolves and dogs—in short, a sort of wolf-ape (_Lycopithecus_). The pack was a means of increasing the supply of food per unit; and gregariousness increased by natural selection up to the limit set by utility. Hence (as will be shown at length in the next chapter) Man is in character more like a dog or a wolf than he is like any other animal.