THE OCCULT SENSES IN BIRDS. 1 



By Herbert H. Beck, 

 Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pa. 



That animals below man, in the accepted biological line, have 

 retained in efficient form much that has been greatly reduced or nearly 

 lost in the process of developing nature's master product — the human 

 mind — is a fact of common knowledge. The senses of sight, smell, 

 and hearing in man are almost rudimentary when compared with the 

 same senses as developed in the hawk, the setter dog, and the fox. 



It is not so generally recognized, though none the less perhaps a 

 fact, that certain senses widely or selectively a part of animal 

 life are absolutely gone in man. So thoroughly are these senses 

 atrophied or lacking in the human mind that man, with all his highly 

 developed imagination, can not even vaguely visualize the subtle proc- 

 esses by which they operate. 



In bird life one of these occult senses, the homing sense, exists to a 

 remarkable degree. The complex phenomena of migration, often 

 over trackless regions, the homing acts of pigeons, and the speedy 

 returns over unfamiliar sea courses of sooty terns taken a thousand 

 miles from their nests can not adequately be explained on the basis 

 of acuteness of vision or persistence of memory in the birds that make 

 these wonderful flights. There apparently is something entirely apart 

 from human consciousness or subconsciousness that holds the bird 

 to a true course between widely separated points. 



The homing sense is broadly, though somewhat selectively, dis- 

 tributed among animals. It is exhibited by many insects and by some 

 mammals. It only finds its greatest development in birds. 



Nor is there anything supernatural about this seemingly occult 

 faculty. It probably is only a common trait of animal life strongly 

 carried through in certain groups. A highly efficient homing sense 

 is but an example — like the keeled sternum in birds or the mind in 

 man — of a well-established principle of progressive evolution. The 

 inordinate development in selected species of organ or sense common 

 to many is a course so regular in nature that it can not be considered 

 an irregularity. 



1 Presented before the Delaware Valley Ornithological Club. Reprinted by permission 

 from The Auk, Vol. XXXVII, No. 1, January, 1920. 



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