galton.org 53
Gregarious and Slavish Instincts
53
would crowd so closely as to interfere with each other when grazing the
scattered pasture of Damara land; if less gregarious, they would be too
widely scattered to keep a sufficient watch against the wild beasts.
I now proceed to consider more particularly why the range of deviation
from the average is such that we find about one ox out of fifty to possess
sufficient independence of character to serve as a pretty good fore-ox.
Why is it not one in five or one in five hundred? The reason undoubtedly
is that natural selection tends to give but one leader to each suitably-sized
herd, and to repress superabundant leaders. There is a certain size of herd
most suitable to the geographical and other conditions of the country; it
must not be too large, or the scattered puddles which form their only
watering-places for a great part of the year would not suffice; and there
are similar drawbacks in respect to pasture. It must not be too small, or it
would be comparatively insecure; thus a troop of five animals is far more
easy to be approached by a stalking huntsman than one of twenty, and the
latter than one of a hundred. We have seen that it is the oxen who graze
apart, as well as those who lead the herd, who are recognised by the
trainers of cattle as gifted with enough independence of character to
become fore-oxen. They are even preferred to the actual leaders of the
herd; they dare to move more alone, and therefore their independence is
undoubted. The leaders arc safe enough from lions, because their flanks
and rear are guarded by their followers; but each of those who graze apart,
and who represent the superabundant supply of self-reliant animals, have
one flank and the rear exposed, and it is precisely these whom the lions
take. Looking at the matter in a broad way, we may justly assert that wild
beasts trim and prune every herd into compactness, and tend to reduce it
into a closely-united body with a single well-protected leader. That the
development of independence of character in cattle is thus suppressed
below its otherwise natural standard by the influence of wild beasts, is
shown by the greater display of self-reliance among cattle whose ancestry
for some generations have not been exposed to such danger.
What has been said about cattle, in relation to wild
