BIRD BEHAVIOUR SIR,— Having regard to the very great interest attaching
to all aspects of bird behaviour, I should be grateful if you would allow me space to reply to the various points raised by Mr. James Fisher in his review of my book The Blackbird. Mr. Fisher, who will be remembered by many as the energetic secretary of the British Trust for Ornithology, has accused me of. setting up the modern scientific ornithologist as an Aunt Sally. The complaint in question, together with one or two others, appeared in your issue of August 18th under the title, " Disputes About Birds."
Now I think it is only fair to Mr. Fisher, and to the very large number of people who seem to share my views, to point out that the boot is on the other foot. It is the young modern scientific ornithologist who has set himself up as an Aunt Sally, and, having done so, must not be surprised if any missiles come his way. No one appreciates more than I do the very excellent work these young men have accomplished in the interests of ornithology, especially Mr. Fisher. But lately some of his contemporaries have shown a tendency to leave the sacred precincts of the laboratory and museum and wander in the field. Certainly their findings have been spectacular ; some interesting, but by far the greater proportion, grotesquely uninformative. Is it to be wondered, therefore, that many of us are hoping that the time is not far distant when these aspirants to ornithological fame will realise that an academic degree is by no means the "open sesame" to all the intricacies of bird behaviour. That, as yet, there is no litmus paper for mentality.
Mr. Fisher takes me to task for having stated that those blackbirds hatched near the habitations of man appear to have a greater tendency to remain sedentary than those which begin their lives in the more remote country districts. He contemptuously states that there is no evidence of this whatever. Now, I first began to watch blackbirds many years before Mr. Fisher was born, and carefully refrained from coming to any theoretical conclusions until I had accomplished thirty years' observation. Time and time again I fo-und that blackbirds hatched in built-up areas
were seen in their old haunts for several years running, while those in remote districts sought fresh territory, nested, and departed again. As I stated at the time, this was by no means conclusive evidence, but, to my way of thinking, was not without a certain significance. Mr. Fisher infers that this is so much poppycock, but does not tell us why.
Again, Mr. Fisher makes a derogatory remark on my notes concerning migration. As, however, he has entirely missed the point, comment is unnecessary. But if, through his endocrinological studies, he has anything to add to what Thomson, Rowan, Wolfson, Bissonnettte or Bullough, just to mention a few of them, have already told us, I (and a great many others) would be very interested to hear about it. Finally, I would inform Mr. Fisher that a very large number of ornithologists, some of them with many letters after their names, is heartily sick of reading the little pseudo- scientific notes on bird behaviour which are appearing in ever increasing numbers. They are mostly couched in magnificent scientific jargon, im- pressive to the last degree ; but when stripped of their gorgeous trappings, disclose no more than a naked skeleton.—Yours faithfully,
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