Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review Volumes 32 and 33.djvu/233

 Revieivs. 221

the most successful hunters followed their prey afoot upon the ground and specialisation perfected the mechanism. A more plausible hypothesis seems to be that the precursor was forced, rather than induced, to acquire terrestrial progression. This would be accomplished if the group of human anthropoids hved in an area that became desiccated, forest conditions would give way to park-land, the trees being scattered as in the African bush-velt, and in time might virtually disappear. Under such conditions our ancestors must have taken to the ground, and thus a hunting life may have practically been forced on them. Though the large anthropoids are not gregarious, monkeys mostly are, and the ancestor of man either became gregarious or retained the social habit, and if he, as was probably the case, was incapable of killing enough prey single-handed, he would have profited by being both social and co-operative as a hunter, like the wolves and dogs. 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 man is in character more like a dog or a wolf than he is like any other animal. Mr. Read is convinced that of the four or five types of mammalian societies, which he enumerates, our own primitive society resembled that of the hunting-pack. He then proceeds to describe with some detail the psychology of the hunting-pack of wolves, such as : (i) The master-interest of every member of the pack lies in the chase, because success in it is necessary to life. (2) The gregariousness of the pack is variable. (3) With gregariousness went (a) perceptive sym- pathy, {h) contagious sympathy, and [c] effective, i.e. defensive, sympathy. (4) The pack has a disposition to aggression upon every sort of animal outside the pack. (5) A hunting-pack, probably, always claims a certain territory ; this is the first ground of the sense of property. (6) A pack must have a leader, and must devotedly follow him as long as he is mani- festly the best of the pack ; and here we have a rudimentary loyalty. -(7) Every individual must be subservient to the pack, as long as it works together. (8) The members of the pack must be full of emulation ; in order that, when the present leader fails, others may be ready to take his place. (9) For the internal