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When I first saw this 433 page book,
I knew I was in for
an exhaustive review of the subject – ornithology – the study of birds. Reading about the history of a zoological
discipline can be long and arduous, or it can be educational and
entertaining. This book is the latter.
 The old style cover is simple, yet aesthetically
pleasing. The illustrations used
throughout are pertinent and very well chosen. Ornithologist
Tim Birkhead has looked at all aspects
of bird behavior,
from the time of Aristotle to the present day. Each
of the book’s chapters covers a different topic
- such as
migration, birdsong, or territory - and he goes right back to the
earliest
writings of each subject and brings it through to the present day.
Birkhead introduces us to John Ray, a man who he considers
to be the greatest of all ornithologists. Ray
(1622 - 1705) championed the remarkable
innovation actually going
out and observing birds, not in ancient books, but in the field. Ray achieved answers to many questions about
particular aspects of bird behavior. Birkhead
points out that, more importantly, he
formulated the right
questions about birds, questions to which he discovered at least
partial
answers. One of the questions Ray asked
about birds was just how it was that eggs could be fertilized and turn
into
chicks. William Harvey (who is more
famous for establishing how blood circulates) fastened onto this
question and
conducted investigations into this (at the time) thorny dilemma. He couldn't find semen anywhere in hens
after copulation, and so retreated (with dissatisfaction) to the early
explanation that the ovum played the primary role in reproduction while
the
semen acted "in an ethereal manner" and added nothing materially to
the developing embryo. Ray understood
that the sperm in semen and the ovum probably united to make the new
embryo,
but he couldn’t understand the process. He could not accept that God
would be
so wasteful with sperm, saying that the millions of sperm manufactured
and lost
"seems not agreeable to the wisdom and providence of Nature." It was
another century and a half before the intricacies of avian reproduction
were
fully understood.
One particularly amusing section is
about the odd beliefs
of yesteryear about wild birds (barnacle geese spontaneously springing
from
timbers floating in the sea, swallows (and swifts and martins)
hibernating underwater
in the mud of ponds during Winter, etc). I
really enjoyed reading about the early European
bird catchers and
their training of singing birds.
In the chapter on infidelity among
birds, Birkhead writes
that ministers instructed their flocks to emulate the sober and
strictly
monogamous birds of the field. They
were wrong about the monogamy, but so were the writings of famous
scientists
like Darwin. Ray asked, in the unsparing
manner of the seventeenth century scientist, "Why should there be
implanted
in each sex such a vehement and inexpugnable appetite for
copulation?" He and the Victorian
churchmen might be shocked by the answer - female
promiscuity.
The habit of male birds when faced with promiscuity is to
produce lots of sperm and perform lots of couplings.
This simple fact wasn’t acknowledged until much.
much later – in
the 1960’s.
In all of the chapters, Birkhead traces the understanding
of particular behaviours in birds from hearsay and superstition right
through
to the culmination of scientific desciptions. Along the way, he
describes
different experiments, like the ones to show how male canaries with the
more
complicated songs stimulated the females to build their nests faster. He explains how the observations of
latter-day field ornithologists eventually formulated the concept of
male birds
guarding a territory, and that such birds competed for territory
directly, and
only secondarily did they compete for the females.
To outline the investigations of how bird embryos
become male or
female, he tells us about the cock who was accused of laying eggs in
1474 in
Basil, Switzerland. The hermaphroditic
cock was found guilty and burned at the stake. It
was dissected prior to the burning and was found
to contain three
more eggs. Birkhead details how early
bird catchers would keep their captives
in the dark before unveiling them as if to a false spring, artificially
maximizing the months during which the birds would sing.
These were lessons that researchers
determining how light affects the bird’s breeding cycles had to relearn
in the
last century.
All in all I found this to be a very
interesting
book. I will admit – I learned a lot
about the history of ornithology from reading it and I have newfound
respect
for the pioneers of the science. I
recommend this book for anyone interested in any aspect of birds and
their
behaviour – either as “bird watchers” or “bird keepers”.
CONTENTS:
Preface
1
From Folklore to Facts: John Ray and
Ornithology 17
Seeing and Not Believing: From Egg
to Chick 53
Preparation for Life: Instinct and
Intelligence 89
Disappearing Fantasies: The
Emergence of Migration 131
Illuminating Discoveries: Light and
the Breeding
Cycle 173
The Novelty of Field Work: The
Discovery of Territory 205
Choristers of the Groves: Birdsong 239
A Delicate Balance: Sex
273
Darwin in Denial: Infidelity 301
A Degenerate Life Corrupts:
Reproduction and
Longevity 331
Postscript
365
Notes
369
Bibliography
389
Glossary
405
Picture Credits 411
Index 415
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