"It is curious that although human navigators have for 

 centuries been obtaining their position in unknown areas 

 from the sun's co-ordinates, it is only in the last few 

 years that the possibility of birds doing likewise has been 

 considered." G. V. T. Matthews, Bird Navigation 



15 



Awareness of Direction 



Ihe manner in which birds find their way in migra- 

 tion is one of the oldest mysteries to mankind. With each migrant is the se- 

 cret, discoverable because it is there, yet undiscovered. Many like to believe 

 this ability stems from a special sense — a "sixth sense," writes Chapman 

 ( 1916: 138), that "has been called a sense of direction. The sense of sight we 

 know to exist in the eye, and the sense of hearing in the ear, and in the 

 nerves leading from these organs to the brain. But no one knows where the 

 sense of direction is situated." 



While a few modern ornithologists still believe with Chapman in this 

 undiscovered sense, we now realize, of course, that the so-called five senses 

 are not discrete, that sensory awareness of the outer world is not separable 

 into special components of perception. It is thus "a confused gesture of de- 

 spair to dispose of the problem by calling for a sixth sense — or a sixteenth" 

 (Griffin, 1953:215). 



Some have turned to the travels of man to find evidence of a sense of 

 direction, like Lincoln (1950a: 28), who says that "man recognizes this sense 

 in himself, though usually it is imperfect and frequently at fault." To be 

 sure, there are abundant testimonials in favor of a human sense of direction, 

 these offered by or concerning people who found their way home or to camp 

 under adverse conditions. But the subjects seldom are aware of how such 

 orientation is accomplished; the best Hudson could offer ( 1922 ) by way of 

 explaining his homeward "hunches" was "a nerve in the brain," which he 

 considered to be active in animals but usually latent in man. There seems 

 to be no scientific evidence of such a sense in man. Indeed, man has spent 

 far more time and money studying the orientation of birds than of the prob- 



192 



