AWARENESS OF DIRECTION 



in unknown territory and when the correct direction of the homing flight 

 bears no relation to directions that have been previously adhered to in 

 training nights or migrations. 



Type I navigation is "contact" flying, the bird being guided by visual 

 reference to the earth. Such orientation on the local range is commonly 

 considered to be within our comprehension; we wonder only how birds 

 find their way on the longer journeys. Watson and Lashley (1915), among 

 others, have distinguished between proximate orientation, as where the goal 

 itself directly and immediately stimulates the animal, and distant orienta- 

 tion, as where the goal is beyond the perception of any known receptors. 



But in Type I navigation, where the bird orientates itself entirely by 

 visual contact with the world over which it travels, I feel that it is mislead- 

 ing to judge the complexity of the problem in terms of distance. If we dis- 

 regard the relative values of the travel coordinates, then the artificial prob- 

 lem in the mind of the human investigator must become vastly more com- 

 plex than it can ever be to the bird in passage. We must not make a clear-cut 

 distinction between proximate and distant orientation, for in all travel, 

 whether of bird in migration or of human child to kindergarten, the distant, 

 unperceived objective is attained only by passing through a series of proxi- 

 mate situations. In our human travel we "cross our bridges" as they are 

 reached. Brown (Gregg, 1939:69), who studied human behavior in a maze, 

 tells us that "few subjects, when they are able to tread the maze correctly, 

 can recoimt the turns as 'right,' left,' 'right,' etc. Almost invariably, after 

 giving a few turns thus verbally, the subject will say, T don't know what 

 comes next; J have to be there before I can tell you.' " I suspect it may be the 

 same with ducks and other birds. As Mallards cross the passes day after day 

 en route to stubble, or return to the home marsh spring after spring, they 

 may be ever aware of the proximate situations as these make the path to 

 the distant and unseen goals. 



At two or three weeks of age, the duckling travels in an oriented manner 

 about its slough, where the forest of reeds stretching far above its head ex- 

 tends in all ways in confusing monotony. The grain fields to this bird are a 

 world unknown, as unreachable as the moon itself, as far beyond compre- 

 hension as America was to Aristotle. Eight weeks later, however, when 

 the youngster takes wing, relative distances become shorter, and prairie 

 farms are soon a part of a wide, familiar realm. First to near fields, then to 

 far, until the young Mallard is feeding many miles from home by mid- 

 August. Come October and it has reached Minnesota or North Dakota or 



195 



