Homing and Related Activities of Birds, Vol. 7

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Excerpt from Homing and Related Activities of Birds, Vol. 7: The Acquisition of Skill in ArcheryIn 1907, while the senior author was making a study Of the nesting behavior of the noddy and sooty terns at Bird Key, Tortugas, Florida, * the fact was Observed that these birds possess a well-developed homing sense. Only a few experiments were made at that time (see p. But the results were so promising that Dr. Alfred G. Mayer, Director of the Marine Biological Station of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, made Special arrangements for the continuation Of the work in 1910, 1912, and 1913. Since the homing Sea son is only 5 to 6 weeks in length (being limited to the laying and brooding periods), the present summary of the three years' work is far from being satis factory. Notwithstanding Our failure to work out completely the problems of homing in the terns, we feel that we have made so many improvements in our technique - in the matter of caring for the birds on trips, locating them on return, etc., that it is advisable to report both what we have on homing and On the control of homing experiments. Some care has been taken in the pres ent investigation to supplement the 1907 work on the instinctive life of the terns. This was found to be desirable in View of the fact that in the control of the experiments on homing it becomes essential to have some accurate data on the ability of the birds to swim and to remain on the water at night, the length of time the nesting impulse remains strong, the length of time habits of reacting to one nest and to one mate are retained, etc. The actual experi mental material On distant orientation will be given in detail, but the observa tions upon the instincts and habits of the birds will be presented in a more or less abridged form.On pages 34 and 35 we give the location of Bird Key, a description of the colony of terns dwelling there, and the complete setting of our experimental work.Before presenting our own work we shall give in some detail the general historical setting of the problem of homing in vertebrates.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.