Thought Transference (or What ?) in Birds

Abstract

MR. SELOUS holds a high place as an observer of bird behaviour, and in the present small volume he gives much admirable description in support of his view that the concerted actions of flocks can be explained only by postulating some kind of ‘thought transference’ between the members. The apparently simultaneous rising of a flock of rooks without obvious extraneous stimulus; the unanimity with which a party of dunlins wheel in their dashing flight; the sudden hush that stills the screaming of a colony of terns: these and many other examples of community behaviour the author observes over and over again with minute care.

Thought Transference (or What ?) in Birds.

By Edmund Selous. Pp. xi + 255. (London: Constable and Co., Ltd., 1931.) 7s. 6d. net.