The Orientation of Birds 147 



plished by the animal. Many very interesting statements have been 

 made concerning their habits, and their manner of Hving ; but when 

 it is a question of tracing back effect to cause the observer has 

 generally taken a false direction. Wrongfully taking himself as a 

 term of comparison, he asks what he would do in order to accomplish 

 a certain instinctive act occurring among beasts. 



It is just in this way that some colombophiles attribute the return 

 of the Pigeon to a wonderful local memory. In his daily recreation 

 the animal flying above the Pigeon cote would note the salient in- 

 equalities of the soil, would study their situation, and would use 

 them for guiding points to his dwelling, tracing in this way a veri- 

 table triangulation on the country he inhabits. According to others, 

 the animal would base himself on the meteorological record, or else 

 would acquire, in time, a thorough knowledge of the local magnetic 

 currents. Such a hypothesis explains one mysterious fact by other 

 facts still more mysterious. Some have even asserted that the Pigeon 

 takes his direction according to the course of the stars. We think 

 that this theory is fantastic, and must be rejected. 



The animal could not be a mathmetician, geometrician, electrician, 

 or astronomer. The explanation we advance is more simple. 



We have stated that the facts of orientation group themselves 

 under two categories : (i) near orientation and (2) distant orientation. 

 Near orientation is based on observation, employing the five senses — 

 objective organs. It puts in play the memory, the reason, the free 

 will of the animal. It chooses one solution and takes the shortest 

 road for its return. 



Distant orientation is based on the functional activity of a 

 subjective organ which is situated in the semicircular canals of the 

 ear, and which registers mechanically the road passed over ; this sense 

 of direction given to the animal the idea of its position for returning 

 to the points of its departure. The return is governed thus by the 

 Law of Reverse Scent. The animal does not now choose its route ; 

 there is but one solution at its disposal — to return by the road which 

 it came. 



Orientation over familiar ground, based on observation, memory, 

 reason and, in a certain measure, free will, is an intellectual act ; 

 Orientation over unknown and distant land, based on the functional 

 activity of an organ, is an impulsive and irrational act. 



The most gifted animals in regard to distant orientation are not, 

 in effect, the most intelligent, but are those which possess the most 

 powerful means of locomotion. Thus it is that birds, infinitely less 

 intelligent that certain quadrupeds, have over the latter an incontes- 

 table superiority for distant orientation. 



