ANIMALS ON THE MOVE
ANIMAL NAVIGATION, by J. D. Carthy; Allen and Unwin, English price 18/-. ‘THIS is a fascinating survey of the few facts known and the many mysteries still unsolved in the field of ani-
mal navigation, Ur Carthy, a research worker in animal behaviour, writes for the man in street, but not for the man who has given no thought to these problems and done no reading about them. He is popular but he is difficult, and I should not like to suggest that I have grasped everything he says about echolocation or found my way easily through some of his
diagrams. Here I think I will have the company of more than a few other readers; but no reader who gets as far as that chapter will fail to go on. By animals Dr Carthy means insects, birds, mammals, and fish, and he suspects, I think, though he is careful not to say, that the more we discover about navigation in all these fields the more clearly we will see that it is not necessary to postulate other faculties and senses than those we know about already. Difficult problems, of course, intrude, some apparently insoluble if we rule out inborn faculties. How, for example, do migrating butterflies find their way home again when those that return are not the wanderers that set out, but hatchings from their eggs? How do eels find their way from the spawning grounds on which their parents died thousands of feet below the surface of the sea to the creeks and rivers thousands of miles away from which their parents put to sea? Dr Carthy rejects the idea that these, or any other animals, have "a sense of direction," as he denies, or finds it unnecessary to believe, that some men have a "bump of locality." There is, he thinks, no reason ultimately why all animal navigation should not be explained in terms of "sensitivity to sources of stimuli familiar to man." The first step is to give up thinking of the senses of animals as roughly equivalent to our own. The second is to avoid the temptation of wandering into the realm of fantasy.
O.
D.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19570412.2.23.3
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 13
Word count
Tapeke kupu
366ANIMALS ON THE MOVE New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 922, 12 April 1957, Page 13
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Material in this publication is protected by copyright.
Are Media Limited has granted permission to the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa to develop and maintain this content online. You can search, browse, print and download for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Are Media Limited for any other use.
Copyright in the work University Entrance by Janet Frame (credited as J.F., 22 March 1946, page 18), is owned by the Janet Frame Literary Trust. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this article and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the New Zealand Listener. You can search, browse, and print this article for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from the Janet Frame Literary Trust for any other use.
Copyright in the Denis Glover serial Hot Water Sailor published in 1959 is owned by Pia Glover. The National Library has been granted permission to digitise this serial and make it available online as part of this digitised version of the Listener. You can search, browse, and print this serial for research and personal study only. Permission must be obtained from Pia Glover for any other use.
Log in