The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1898-03-23
HomlNo INSTINCT OF BIRDS.
A Specialist Concludes They Have Sixth
Sense, That of Orientntion.

A Specialist Concludes They Have Sixth
Sense, That of Orieptntion.
Captain Renaud, the French special
ist in charge OF the military pigeon
service, Is firm believer in a sixth
sense in pigeons and other birds and
animals possessed of the homing in.
stinct, which he calls the sense oi
''orientation. He has defended his
theory at length in paper recently
read before the French Academic des
Sciences, claiming to have amply
proved IL by special trials of various
kinds He says il the five senses act
ing together account for short distance
"homing," sixth sense is required
for long distance in unknown places.
He says this organ is situated in the
semi-circuar canals of the ear. NJ.
Coyon and DIR. BONNER have shown
that any lesion which affects il troubles
the orienting faculty of the patient,
whether man or animal. A pigeon let
fly ut 400 miles from its cote takes the
back track it has come by the railway.
Having reached in this way the region
known to it, the bird relies on its or
dinary senses, or else continues to de-
pend on it's sixth sense.
The sixth sense only acts when the
others are inactive, and not i'll con-
junction with them. 1t guides the
bird along the more or less sinuous
way it has been taken. The other
senses, especially sight, enable it to
strike u short cut home. From his
observations Captain Renaud deduces
this law: The instinct of distant orien-
tation is that faculty which animals
possess of taking the back track or
retracing way already taken. The
sixth sense is apparently independent
of the external impressions which al
feet the other five senses.
Here is new experiment that seems
to confirm his theory. If pigeon
does not need local knowledge to find
its way home, it is possible to have n
travelling cote and accuston the birds
to wandering life. Suppose the cote
transplanted bodily to strange place,
without in any way troubling the
birds, these would still he able to find
their way back to it by the sixth sense
Captain Remand has realized this idea
by mounting the cotes in wagons
travelling all over France The birds
know no other home, and in localities
quite strange to them find their way
back to it. Evidently, local know
ledge is ont of the question, and they
rely on n special sense.
Sometimes n homing bird passes
over the cote without seeing it, as
though it were hypnotized, and CON
tinues till it reaches the station of the
cote the evening before. One bird re-
traced the travelling cote from Rau-
pane to Houdain, aud then followed
the railway by which it had come
there TO Evrenx, where it was caught.
Captain Renaud concludes that exist
ing theories, which ascribe homing to
local knowledge or local magnetic cur
rents, do not account for his facts, es-
pecially the return to travelling
home. But, say the advocates of that
theory, he does.not seem to under
stand the magnetic theory of the fac
ulty. The magnetic currents of the
earth are not local. but universal, and
wherever the cote is placed the bird
can guide itself by them. His expert.
ments, they say, so far from contro.
verting the magnetic hypothesis. tend
rather to confirm it, and had there
been an electrician Mt the "seance" OF
the academic when he read his paper,
this would have been pointed out.