THE LAWS OF ORIENTATION AMONG ANIMALS. 



By Capt. G. Eeynaud. 



It would seem that wild animals are devoted to a wandering- life, and 

 yet a careful observation of their habits shows that the fields, the 

 woods, the plains, and the air are quite equitably divided among them, 

 as separate districts. Each one of them lives within a domain whose 

 resources he uses to the best advantage, and where, fearing the com- 

 petition of his kind, he permits only a limited number of them to range. 

 Thus among animals property is communal. 



The extent of the domain varies, moreover, with the resources which 

 it presents, the protection which it offers against every kind of danger, 

 and especially according to the animal's ]>ower of locomotion. 



This division of domain is in some measure a necessity of existence. 

 Every animal that, by reason of defective instinct or for any other rea- 

 son, attempts to escape from it is quickly exterminated by natural 

 selection ; driven off by his comrades with whom he strives for daily 

 food, wandering haphazard in an unknown territory full of snares, he 

 becomes an easy prey for the enemies of his species. 



The instinct of orientation, which guides an animal back to his home, 

 and consequently his habits, his food, his protection against danger, 

 plays a prominent part in his life. To it he owes his individuality, the 

 memory which attaches him to the past, and, up to a certain point, the 

 satisfaction of his needs in the present. 



We propose to study the mechanism of this orientation among ani- 

 mals. As the principal object of our study, we have chosen the carrier 

 pigeon. A great number of facts observed by us for the first time have 

 been grouped and classified. We have deduced, if not the law that 

 controls, at least a theory that accounts for them. This theory we will 

 now explain. Allot its propositions are founded upon facts rigorously 

 and scrupulously established or on experiments easy to reproduce. 



Just as occurrences seemingly casual, such as the distribution of bul- 

 lets in a target, are subject to laws of which science has given us the 



1 Translated from the Revne des Deux Mondes, Vol. CXLVI, pp. 380-402. 

 SM 98 31 481 



