Page:Territory in Bird Life by Henry Eliot Howard (London, John Murray edition).djvu/334

266 of external constraint—but because it derives some pleasure from satisfying something in its organic complex. We speak of this behaviour and of the emotion which characterises it as the gregarious instinct: by which we mean that the inherited nature of the Curlew, as a tribe, is so constituted that, given the appropriate internal conditions and adequate external stimulation, every individual will respond in a similar manner—that is, the behaviour is primarily determined by racial preparation. This is what we mean by the gregarious instinct biologically considered. We may resolve our own experience in relation to the crowd into its simplest constituents, project our own primitive feelings into the Curlew, and say that the bird feels uneasiness in isolation and satisfaction in being one of the flock. But in truth we know nothing, save by analogy, of the correlated psychical state. All the knowledge we possess is derived from a study of the objective aspect of the behaviour, which in simple terms may be expressed thus: the individual is drawn towards its companions; there is a relation between the size of the flock and the strength of the attraction; and all Curlew behave similarly under similar circumstances.

This instinct controls the movements of many birds from early autumn to the commencement of the breeding season. And so powerful is the control that the individual is suppressed and its activities subordinated to the welfare of the community as a whole. Flocks