[Editorial] Behring -> Bering

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@@ -31,7 +31,7 @@
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 			<p>Going now over to mammals, the first thing which strikes us is the overwhelming numerical predominance of social species over those few carnivores which do not associate. The plateaus, the Alpine tracts, and the Steppes of the Old and New World are stocked with herds of deer, antelopes, gazelles, fallow deer, buffaloes, wild goats and sheep, all of which are sociable animals. When the Europeans came to settle in America, they found it so densely peopled with buffaloes, that pioneers had to stop their advance when a column of migrating buffaloes came to cross the route they followed; the march past of the dense column lasting sometimes for two and three days. And when the Russians took possession of Siberia they found it so densely peopled with deer, antelopes, squirrels, and other sociable animals, that the very conquest of Siberia was nothing but a hunting expedition which lasted for two hundred years; while the grass plains of Eastern Africa are still covered with herds composed of zebra, the hartebeest, and other antelopes.</p>
 			<p>Not long ago the small streams of Northern America and Northern Siberia were peopled with colonies of beavers, and up to the seventeenth century like colonies swarmed in Northern Russia. The flat lands of the four great continents are still covered with countless colonies of mice, ground-squirrels, marmots, and other rodents. In the lower latitudes of Asia and Africa the forests are still the abode of numerous families of elephants, rhinoceroses, and numberless societies of monkeys. In the far north the reindeer aggregate in numberless herds; while still further north we find the herds of the musk-oxen and numberless bands of polar foxes. The coasts of the ocean are enlivened by flocks of seals and morses; its waters, by shoals of sociable cetaceans; and even in the depths of the great plateau of Central Asia we find herds of wild horses, wild donkeys, wild camels, and wild sheep. All these mammals live in societies and nations sometimes numbering hundreds of thousands of individuals, although now, after three centuries of gunpowder civilization, we find but the debris of the immense aggregations of old. How trifling, in comparison with them, are the numbers of the carnivores! And how false, therefore, is the view of those who speak of the animal world as if nothing were to be seen in it but lions and hyenas plunging their bleeding teeth into the flesh of their victims! One might as well imagine that the whole of human life is nothing but a succession of war massacres.</p>
-			<p>Association and mutual aid are the rule with mammals. We find social habits even among the carnivores, and we can only name the cat tribe (lions, tigers, leopards, <abbr>etc.</abbr>) as a division the members of which decidedly prefer isolation to society, and are but seldom met with even in small groups. And yet, even among lions “this is a very common practice to hunt in company.”<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-34" id="noteref-34" epub:type="noteref">34</a> The two tribes of the civets (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Viverridae</i>) and the weasels (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Mustelidae</i>) might also be characterized by their isolated life, but it is a fact that during the last century the common weasel was more sociable than it is now; it was seen then in larger groups in Scotland and in the Unterwalden canton of Switzerland. As to the great tribe of the dogs, it is eminently sociable, and association for hunting purposes may be considered as eminently characteristic of its numerous species. It is well known, in fact, that wolves gather in packs for hunting, and Tschudi left an excellent description of how they draw up in a half-circle, surround a cow which is grazing on a mountain slope, and then, suddenly appearing with a loud barking, make it roll in the abyss.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-35" id="noteref-35" epub:type="noteref">35</a> Audubon, in the thirties, also saw the Labrador wolves hunting in packs, and one pack following a man to his cabin, and killing the dogs. During severe winters the packs of wolves grow so numerous as to become a danger for human settlements, as was the case in France some five-and-forty years ago. In the Russian Steppes they never attack the horses otherwise than in packs; and yet they have to sustain bitter fights, during which the horses (according to Kohl’s testimony) sometimes assume offensive warfare, and in such cases, if the wolves do not retreat promptly, they run the risk of being surrounded by the horses and killed by their hoofs. The prairie-wolves (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Canis latrans</i>) are known to associate in bands of from twenty to thirty individuals when they chase a buffalo occasionally separated from its herd.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-36" id="noteref-36" epub:type="noteref">36</a> Jackals, which are most courageous and may be considered as one of the most intelligent representatives of the dog tribe, always hunt in packs; thus united, they have no fear of the bigger carnivores.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-37" id="noteref-37" epub:type="noteref">37</a> As to the wild dogs of Asia (the <i xml:lang="und">Kholzuns</i>, or <i xml:lang="und">Dholes</i>), Williamson saw their large packs attacking all larger animals save elephants and rhinoceroses, and overpowering bears and tigers. Hyenas always live in societies and hunt in packs, and the hunting organizations of the painted lycaons are highly praised by Cumming. Nay, even foxes, which, as a rule, live isolated in our civilized countries, have been seen combining for hunting purposes.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-38" id="noteref-38" epub:type="noteref">38</a> As to the polar fox, it is⁠—or rather was in Steller’s time⁠—one of the most sociable animals; and when one reads Steller’s description of the war that was waged by Behring’s unfortunate crew against these intelligent small animals, one does not know what to wonder at most: the extraordinary intelligence of the foxes and the mutual aid they displayed in digging out food concealed under cairns, or stored upon a pillar (one fox would climb on its top and throw the food to its comrades beneath), or the cruelty of man, driven to despair by the numerous packs of foxes. Even some bears live in societies where they are not disturbed by man. Thus Steller saw the black bear of Kamtchatka in numerous packs, and the polar bears are occasionally found in small groups. Even the unintelligent insectivores do not always disdain association.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-39" id="noteref-39" epub:type="noteref">39</a></p>
+			<p>Association and mutual aid are the rule with mammals. We find social habits even among the carnivores, and we can only name the cat tribe (lions, tigers, leopards, <abbr>etc.</abbr>) as a division the members of which decidedly prefer isolation to society, and are but seldom met with even in small groups. And yet, even among lions “this is a very common practice to hunt in company.”<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-34" id="noteref-34" epub:type="noteref">34</a> The two tribes of the civets (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Viverridae</i>) and the weasels (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Mustelidae</i>) might also be characterized by their isolated life, but it is a fact that during the last century the common weasel was more sociable than it is now; it was seen then in larger groups in Scotland and in the Unterwalden canton of Switzerland. As to the great tribe of the dogs, it is eminently sociable, and association for hunting purposes may be considered as eminently characteristic of its numerous species. It is well known, in fact, that wolves gather in packs for hunting, and Tschudi left an excellent description of how they draw up in a half-circle, surround a cow which is grazing on a mountain slope, and then, suddenly appearing with a loud barking, make it roll in the abyss.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-35" id="noteref-35" epub:type="noteref">35</a> Audubon, in the thirties, also saw the Labrador wolves hunting in packs, and one pack following a man to his cabin, and killing the dogs. During severe winters the packs of wolves grow so numerous as to become a danger for human settlements, as was the case in France some five-and-forty years ago. In the Russian Steppes they never attack the horses otherwise than in packs; and yet they have to sustain bitter fights, during which the horses (according to Kohl’s testimony) sometimes assume offensive warfare, and in such cases, if the wolves do not retreat promptly, they run the risk of being surrounded by the horses and killed by their hoofs. The prairie-wolves (<i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Canis latrans</i>) are known to associate in bands of from twenty to thirty individuals when they chase a buffalo occasionally separated from its herd.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-36" id="noteref-36" epub:type="noteref">36</a> Jackals, which are most courageous and may be considered as one of the most intelligent representatives of the dog tribe, always hunt in packs; thus united, they have no fear of the bigger carnivores.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-37" id="noteref-37" epub:type="noteref">37</a> As to the wild dogs of Asia (the <i xml:lang="und">Kholzuns</i>, or <i xml:lang="und">Dholes</i>), Williamson saw their large packs attacking all larger animals save elephants and rhinoceroses, and overpowering bears and tigers. Hyenas always live in societies and hunt in packs, and the hunting organizations of the painted lycaons are highly praised by Cumming. Nay, even foxes, which, as a rule, live isolated in our civilized countries, have been seen combining for hunting purposes.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-38" id="noteref-38" epub:type="noteref">38</a> As to the polar fox, it is⁠—or rather was in Steller’s time⁠—one of the most sociable animals; and when one reads Steller’s description of the war that was waged by Bering’s unfortunate crew against these intelligent small animals, one does not know what to wonder at most: the extraordinary intelligence of the foxes and the mutual aid they displayed in digging out food concealed under cairns, or stored upon a pillar (one fox would climb on its top and throw the food to its comrades beneath), or the cruelty of man, driven to despair by the numerous packs of foxes. Even some bears live in societies where they are not disturbed by man. Thus Steller saw the black bear of Kamtchatka in numerous packs, and the polar bears are occasionally found in small groups. Even the unintelligent insectivores do not always disdain association.<a href="endnotes.xhtml#note-39" id="noteref-39" epub:type="noteref">39</a></p>
 			<p>However, it is especially with the rodents, the ungulata, and the ruminants that we find a highly developed practice of mutual aid. The squirrels are individualist to a great extent. Each of them builds its own comfortable nest, and accumulates its own provision. Their inclinations are towards family life, and Brehm found that a family of squirrels is never so happy as when the two broods of the same year can join together with their parents in a remote corner of a forest. And yet they maintain social relations. The inhabitants of the separate nests remain in a close intercourse, and when the pine-cones become rare in the forest they inhabit, they emigrate in bands. As to the black squirrels of the Far West, they are eminently sociable. Apart from the few hours given every day to foraging, they spend their lives in playing in numerous parties. And when they multiply too rapidly in a region, they assemble in bands, almost as numerous as those of locusts, and move southwards, devastating the forests, the fields, and the gardens; while foxes, polecats, falcons, and nocturnal birds of prey follow their thick columns and live upon the individuals remaining behind. The ground-squirrel⁠—a closely-akin genus⁠—is still more sociable. It is given to hoarding, and stores up in its subterranean halls large amounts of edible roots and nuts, usually plundered by man in the autumn. According to some observers, it must know something of the joys of a miser. And yet it remains sociable. It always lives in large villages, and Audubon, who opened some dwellings of the hackee in the winter, found several individuals in the same apartment; they must have stored it with common efforts.</p>
 			<p>The large tribe, of the marmots, which includes the three large genuses of <i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Arctomys</i>, <i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Cynomys</i>, and <i epub:type="z3998:taxonomy">Spermophilus</i>, is still more sociable and still more intelligent. They also prefer having each one its own dwelling; but they live in big villages. That terrible enemy of the crops of South Russia⁠—the <i xml:lang="ru-Latn">souslik</i>⁠—of which some ten millions are exterminated every year by man alone, lives in numberless colonies; and while the Russian provincial assemblies gravely discuss the means of getting rid of this enemy of society, it enjoys life in its thousands in the most joyful way. Their play is so charming that no observer could refrain from paying them a tribute of praise, and from mentioning the melodious concerts arising from the sharp whistlings of the males and the melancholic whistlings of the females, before⁠—suddenly returning to his citizen’s duties⁠—he begins inventing the most diabolic means for the extermination of the little robbers. All kinds of rapacious birds and beasts of prey having proved powerless, the last word of science in this warfare is the inoculation of cholera! The villages of the prairie-dogs in America are one of the loveliest sights. As far as the eye can embrace the prairie, it sees heaps of earth, and on each of them a prairie-dog stands, engaged in a lively conversation with its neighbours by means of short barkings. As soon as the approach of man is signalled, all plunge in a moment into their dwellings; all have disappeared as by enchantment. But if the danger is over, the little creatures soon reappear. Whole families come out of their galleries and indulge in play. The young ones scratch one another, they worry one another, and display their gracefulness while standing upright, and in the meantime the old ones keep watch. They go visiting one another, and the beaten footpaths which connect all their heaps testify to the frequency of the visitations. In short, the best naturalists have written some of their best pages in describing the associations of the prairie-dogs of America, the marmots of the Old World, and the polar marmots of the Alpine regions. And yet, I must make, as regards the marmots, the same remark as I have made when speaking of the bees. They have maintained their fighting instincts, and these instincts reappear in captivity. But in their big associations, in the face of free Nature, the unsociable instincts have no opportunity to develop, and the general result is peace and harmony.</p>
 			<p>Even such harsh animals as the rats, which continually fight in our cellars, are sufficiently intelligent not to quarrel when they plunder our larders, but to aid one another in their plundering expeditions and migrations, and even to feed their invalids. As to the beaver-rats or muskrats of Canada, they are extremely sociable. Audubon could not but admire “their peaceful communities, which require only being left in peace to enjoy happiness.” Like all sociable animals, they are lively and playful, they easily combine with other species, and they have attained a very high degree of intellectual development. In their villages, always disposed on the shores of lakes and rivers, they take into account the changing level of water; their dome-shaped houses, which are built of beaten clay interwoven with reeds, have separate corners for organic refuse, and their halls are well carpeted at wintertime; they are warm, and, nevertheless, well ventilated. As to the beavers, which are endowed, as known, with a most sympathetic character, their astounding dams and villages, in which generations live and die without knowing of any enemies but the otter and man, so wonderfully illustrate what mutual aid can achieve for the security of the species, the development of social habits, and the evolution of intelligence, that they are familiar to all interested in animal life. Let me only remark that with the beavers, the muskrats, and some other rodents, we already find the feature which will also be distinctive of human communities⁠—that is, work in common.</p>