forward, as well as others, in fact, the whole range of the phenomena—how are we to account for their simultaneousness, and the other special features belonging to them?
It would seem as though either one and the same idea were flashed suddenly into the minds of a number of birds in close proximity to each other at one and the same instant of time, or that this same idea, having originated or attained a certain degree of vehemence, at some one point or points—representing some individual bird or birds—spread from thence, as from one or more centres, with inconceivable rapidity, so as to embrace either the whole group or a portion of it, according to the strength of the original outleap. In other words, I suppose (or, at least, I suggest it) that birds when gathered together in large numbers think and act, not individually, but collectively; or, rather, that they do both the one and the other, for that individual birds are capable of withstanding the collective influence of the flock of which they form a part, I have ample evidence. The old Athenians—though slave-holders, wherein they may be compared to the Americans at one period—were a very democratic people, and lived a more public life than any other civilised community either before or after them, of which we have any record. They were also of a very emotional temperament, and it is curious to find amongst them the idea (at any rate) of the φημη—a sudden wave or current of thought which swept through an assembly, causing it to think and act as one man.[1] When watching numbers of birds together, this
- ↑ In the wilderness of Grote's twelve volumes I cannot, now, find the
