Gabriel Reynaud

“ The bird that has gone astray through a defect of instinct is still, nevertheless, not beyond the control of that general law of self-preservation which guides all its actions. On the contrary, it feels strongly the call of instinct which incites it to return to its own cote. ”

“ Let us suppose that a cote is transported into entirely new surroundings without the least disturbance being made in the life of its inhabitants. They, set at liberty on their arrival, will perhaps wander away, but the law of retracement will insure their return. We have remarked above that a lost pigeon knows how to return to the point of his release which he has hardly noticed in the morning and to which apparently no pleasant memory, no interest, attracts him. For still greater reason the dweller in a movable pigeon house would attempt to retrace his journey. ”

“ Initiative [2] is not within his power, and when, in ants or bees, we think we have observed forethought for the future, we soon see that this supposed provision is nothing more than obedience to the momentary call of instinct: the animal accomplishes an action without foreseeing the result.
The search for food and sleep are the two poles between which the existence of an animal constantly gravitates. If, to utilize the resources of his domain, he is obliged to vary his course daily, the periodic need for rest yet brings him back to the same quarters. ”

“ Just as occurrences seemingly casual, such as the distribution of bullets in a target, are subject to laws of which science has given us the secret, so in the capricious flight of a bird or the wandering course of a wild animal chance has, as we believe, no part.
The motive which determines the actions of the animal is the instinct of preservation of the individual and of the species. The animal is capable of a spontaneous activity when he is roused by necessity; it is very seldom that he performs an act that has no immediately useful end. ”

“ But when autumn comes, when the game has grown strong and has learned to escape by flight from the pursuer, he finds himself forced to abandon the domain which he has devastated; he emigrates to the plains and leads a wandering life, settling temporarily in such regions as offer abundant game. He picks out in the center of his hunting ground temporary shelters, to which he returns every evening until spring brings him back to the solitudes, where he builds his nest. What guides the bird of prey in this long expedition? ”

“ Naturalists who have studied orientation have very wrongly noticed only one fact—the return to a single home. They have usually attributed this to a knowledge of the locality, founded on long observation. Such a theory gives no explanation of the facts we have just cited. Have we not shown that the law of retracement guides the animal when it wanders away from the known territory, brings him back to a temporary home, and sometimes, after an absence of many months, leads him back to his native region? ”

“ It is, in fact, sufficient to go through a wood in Sologne, or in any other country abounding in game, to be convinced that the ground is traversed in every direction by trails which do not escape the experienced eyes of the poacher.
Birds also follow through the air roads invisible to our eyes, but which can be revealed by observation. The bird, like the quadruped, contracts the habit of always returning to the same point by the same route. We have watched for some time a group of pigeons that returned every day to the fields at the same time. ”

“ If a man who is trying to orient himself calls to his aid both reason and observation, the sense of direction, through lack of exercise, becomes atrophied. This is why a well-informed man, who estimates everything that he does, often finds his direction less accurately than a man whose intellectual culture is limited ”

“ A certain number of pigeons do not return, others come in on the following days. The owner merely registers the losses and notes the tardy ones without trying to discover the cause of the failure in instinct. In truth, how can we ask for the secret of a bird which, with one stroke of its wing disappears from our view. Its instinct is at fault; the bird must then wander at will, counting on chance to find its way home. ”

“ We think that these fantastic theories should be rejected; an animal can not be a mathematician, a geometrician, an electrician, or an astronomer; and observers have been wrong to attribute any intellectual manifestation to a material action which only puts to use a very perfect organ. The animals most highly gifted in the art of orientation at a distance are not, in fact, the most intelligent, but those which possess the most powerful means of locomotion. ”

“ In the opposite case he lives a very active life, traversing his domain unceasingly, extending its limits as far as possible and sometimes going beyond them. Each animal is thus led to contract habits which become peculiar to him and which constitute his individuality. He obeys the call of instinct, but he seems to have the choice of the means of execution, a certain liberty, while he is simply under the influence of his surroundings. It is necessary to bear this in mind before fixing those general laws to which the movements of the individuals of each species are subject. ”

“ It would be interesting to know whether the theory we have just explained is applicable to man.
An animal's movements are regulated by the law of preservation, which assigns to him an imperative purpose, leaving him a restricted liberty in the choice of means. Man is actuated by the same law, but instinct is not the only determining cause of his action ”

“ Its sight and its other senses are of no use to it, since it is as completely as possible isolated from whatever passes outside, and yet it knows exactly where it is in respect to the point of its departure. We were right, then, in saying that an animal carried to a a distance possesses an entirely subjective idea of his situation independent of the surroundings through which he is for the moment passing. ”

“ We have cited in support of our last deduction some observations made on the carrier pigeon. Since the organ of distant orientation has been developed by a wise selection in this interesting messenger, can we generalize and apply to other animals the remarks which concern it? We do not hesitate to answer such a question affirmatively. By selection man develops a certain faculty abnormally to the detriment of some other; he deforms the primitive type, often destroys the equilibrium of nature for his own profit. ”

“ However, if an animal has not reasoning power he possesses senses whose power surpasses anything that we can imagine.
We know the famous experiment of the female peacock moth shut up in a box and set out at night on a balcony in Paris where representatives of its species were very seldom found. The next morning there were four males, doubtless from the neighboring forest, settled on the box. How did they know that 20 kilometers away they would find a female in the midst of Paris, where they had never before ventured? ”

“ If a common pigeon, accustomed to using almost exclusively its five senses, and a carrier pigeon broken to long voyages, are carried about 10 kilometers away from the cote, when they are successively released an interesting fact is noticeable—the ordinary pigeon, going by sight, will usually make its way much more rapidly than the carrier pigeon, who will find its way back carefully with the aid of its sense of direction. ”

“ Suppose that the same horse is taken into a country of which he is ignorant. After a stay of some hours in a stable he develops the same attachment for his new home which he showed for the former. If in the first drive he is left to his instinct to find his way back it has been ascertained that he will follow the same road, reversed, by which he came, even if it is not the shortest. ”

“ Let us imagine that we are present at a release of pigeons. Many hundreds of birds coming from cotes in the same region are set at liberty at the same time. They set out together, separate to travel in two or three groups. Then as soon as they reach the horizon to which they are accustomed each flies straight to its own home. ”

“ To go from one to the other they emigrate en masse, following routes subject to the same rules as those we have explained for the migration of birds. The desperate war waged against them by fishers who know their habits has never decided them to change their route.
Our theory of orientation seems therefore applicable to animals of every species; it enables us to arrange properly and satisfactorily a number of facts observed and known for some time. ”

“ The full-plumed pigeons of Antwerp, endowed with considerable muscular strength, while they cannot vie with the Liège pigeons in ordinary weather, can, however, battle with a strong wind. It is then quite natural that our pigeons of different powers starting out together should divide up along the route according to their comparative strength. A pigeon from Mons, finding himself in the midst of a band of birds seeking Charleroi, follows them to their destination ”

“ But a poacher who had seen the stag leave the forest noted exactly the place where he passed out and lay in wait for him, feeling certain that the animal when he no longer thought himself threatened would return, by the next morning at the latest, and over exactly the same path by which he had made his exit. ”

“ The actions of animals are all dictated by a single law, which each one of them obeys in a different way. The animal is controlled by his environment. If he finds around his home an abundauce of the necessities of life, he moves about but little and his existence is passed in a very restricted domain. ”

“ It is in this way that some pigeon fanciers attribute the return of the pigeons to a wonderful memory of the locality. In his daily sport the bird rising above his home will note the landmarks of the country, study their relative position, and will notice them in relation to his home, thus making a veritable triangulation of the country where he dwells. According to others, the bird does in time acquire a profound knowledge of the local magnetic currents. ”

“ For example, the employees of the Orleans railway have often told us of the passage to Arthenay, to Étampes, or to Juvisy of Belgian pigeons released at Poitiers, Angouléme, and Bordeaux.
We have deduced from these facts the following hypothesis, which we will call the "law of retracement." The instinct of orientation from a distance is a faculty which all animals possess in different degrees, of retracing a route over which they have once passed. ”

“ The pigeon fanciers of Brussels every year let loose pigeons at Bordeaux. In preparation for this they make three successive releases, at increasing distances, between Brussels and Orleans, consequently towards Bordeaux, then after the release effected at Orleans, without further preparation, the pigeons are set at liberty at Bordeaux and they return to Brussels. Can we attribute their return to a memory of the locality, to a piercing vision? ”

“ When the migratory bird, born in our country, who has never made a journey, is for any reason not present at the departure of his companions, he does not go away. This is why woodcocks, wounded, and consequently unfit to undertake a long journey, resign themselves to remaining in our country another year. ”

“ Mons is not far distant from Charleroi and the lost one need only rise into the air to see his own home. But he does not do so, for he has in previous journeys become accustomed to using only the sense of direction to find his way home from a distance; it never occurs to him to use his sense of sight. ”

“ The chase presents none of the evolutions which we described above; it is nothing but a race between the herbivorous animal, who has on his side speed, and the carnivorous animal, who has endurance. From the condition of the animal and the speed of the hunting party one can determine beforehand the duration of the chase. ”

“ There is at Orleans a depot for pigeons where the birds are kept indoors. The pigeons which are shut in here and which come from the cotes of Paris and the north, live in a semi-obscurity and in absolute ignorance of what passes outside. ”

“ These facts are certainly very curious, but one must not draw too strict conclusions from them; the primitive man knows, in spite of his intellectual inferiority, how to reason out what he shall do. It is consequently very difficult in analyzing an act of orientation to discern in it the part played by reason. ”

“ The wild goose has not an eye formed like that of nocturnal birds. Deprived of sight by exceptional darkness, these birds did not, however, hesitate to set out on their journey, guided only by the organ of distant orientation. ”

“ We have observed the same regularity of route in the coming and going of two birds of prey.
The peasants know very exactly the points which mark the course of the migrations of birds, and turn this knowledge to account by hunting during certain seasons. ”

“ At other times when it reaches known regions the pigeon does not think of making use of its five senses, but follows its former path back to its cote. Sometimes it goes past it; thus we have seen pigeons returning from a long journey pass within 40 or 50 meters of the cote, go on and only return after an hour or two, having covered in this way, perhaps from 30 to 60 kilometers in the wrong direction. ”

“ We have made cm this subject a very curious observation. When a basket of pigeons which have already performed journeys is carried by rail-road, they manifest great agitation when they reach a station whence they have formerly been released, although they remained indifferent whenever they stopped at previous stations. Now, it will certainly be admitted that a pigeon inclosed in a basket, which in turn is shut up in a dark carriage, can not, from the noise alone, distinguish one station from another. ”

“ The birds of prey which live in the forests of Argonne and of Ardennes or even in the solitudes of the Alps, find in spring in their native region everything that is necessary to their subsistence—young broods and game in abundance. ”