slippery thinking

"A general rule of biology, migratory species are less "aggressive" than sedentary ones.

There is one obvious reason why this should be so. The migration itself, like the pilgrimmage, is the hard journey: a "leveller" on which the "fit" survive and the stragglers fall by the wayside.

The journey thus pre-empts the need for hierarchies and shows of dominance. The "dictators" of the animal kingdom are those who live in an ambience of plenty. The anarchists, as always, are "gentlemen of the road.""
- Bruce Chatwin, Songlines, pp 272-3