Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Herd mentality


In a store window at the mall there is a herd of running elephants.  They are each about the size of a hand.  They are chrome or maybe silver-plated, with brass tusks.  They are identical in form, but vary a little in size.  Individually, it is not an elephant figure that I like at all.  But the whole of them, as a running herd, is captivating.  Like the herd of giraffes in the next window over. 
And so it is with any animals, as I think of it.  The single wildebeest on a television nature show is what?  So much ugly food for the wily crocodile hidden in the mud.  But a herd of them moving across the plain – that is a sight to behold.  So, too, a hillside of buffalo.  A school of any fish.  A flock of geese.   

The many moving as one.  Is it some hunter’s instinct in us that is attracted to this? 

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