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By Root 504 0

like the patriarch among gorillas, the matriarch among Red Deer, the senior male in a group of cooperatively breeding Jungle Babblers. The true leader does not push his followers away from food and water but sees that they have what they need. Alexander of Macedonia, for all his faults, showed his true greatness as a leader when, marching on foot over sandy wastes under a blazing sun at the head of his army, tormented by thirst like all his men and barely able to stagger onward, he was given a helmet full of water, all that his scouts could find. Since it was impossible to divide so little water among so great a multitude, after thanking the scouts, Alexander poured it on the ground in full view of his troops, thereby raising their spirits as much as if each had received a drinkone of the finest things Alexander ever did, remarked his biographer, Arrian.

Much has been made of peck orders and other manifestations of dominance hierarchies as a method of social integration. But animals do not associate with others of their kind in order to be pecked, nipped, butted, or otherwise mistreated and made to feel inferior. Perhaps, however, their need to keep close company with othersfor protection, for help in finding food, or just for companionshipis so great that they are willing to endure such treatment rather than remain solitary. Peck orders and the like appear to be developments whereby animals that are imperfectly social manage to remain together without too much discord. If such animals must compete for precedence, vent their irritation with each other, and otherwise display unfriendly attitudes, it is better that they promptly decide who comes first, who has the power to domineer the others, and that they preserve this order, than that they bicker continually over food, sleeping places, and other benefits. In some animals, we notice great disparity between the need for social cooperation and adaptation to social life. In our own species, this disparity is tragic: we yearn to love and to be loved; yet so great are our asperities and imperfections of character that our attempts to cultivate intimate, enduring relations with others often end in bitterness.

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Of all animals, the termites and social Hymenoptera seem most perfectly fitted for social life; yet the price of this adaptation appears to have been loss of individuality In the most highly social birds that I have studied, not dominance but perfect amity and equality appeared to prevail. Let us now examine the true bonds that hold animal societies together.

The Social Bonds

The life of many animals is a compromise between social and antisocial tendencies. Even when they associate in large companies, these imperfectly social animals hold one another more or less aloof, each surrounding itself with a space within which it does not willingly permit its companions to intrude. This ''Individual distance," as it has been called, is a sort of mobile territory with invisible boundaries that envelops the animal wherever it goes. P.J. Conder (1949) noticed that resting Black-headed Gulls maintain an individual distance of about one body-length; but when searching for food, their separation becomes greater. Tufted Ducks on a lake in St. James's Park in London stayed two or three body-lengths apart. Swallows resting on a wire seldom perch in contact but are often strung out at short and rather even intervals. Frequently the individual distance is the reach of a perching bird's bill.

The most social birds, however, show no such coolness toward their companions. While studying Groove-billed Anis, I noticed no antagonism between the members of a group, no attempt of one to dominate another. These highly social, communal-nesting, black cuckoos widespread in tropical America rest during the day, and roost at night, perching in a row and pressing as close together as they can. If a bird in the middle flies away, the remaining ones promptly sidle together and close the gap. Several species of wood-swallows studied by K. Immelmann (1966) in Australia perched