King Solomon's ring - Konrad Lorentz (1952)

 

Seeing nature through Lorentz eyes

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Working in the place co-funded by Lorentz gave the motivation for this book. I wanted to understand his thoughts and why he is not a unanimity around here. Why so much concern? I did not find any of these answers, instead, I had a lot of fun! Through this book, I could see Lorentz as a classic engaged naturalist that dedicated laborious and extensive hours to observe the animal behavior. He described his interesting findings in a particularly fun way. My sympathy with his narrative might be biased because I am a deeply interested in animal behavior, the so-called ethology. I even adventured myself in the study of animal behavior several times in a frustrating attempt to understand the communication of birds. So I really appreciate Lorentz’s persistence and let's say a natural talent for doing it for pretty much any animal. For me, the book was super fun to read. It took ages to go through because it is short and I did not want it to end. I just rush it up in the last chapters in order to finish before the birthday of a good friend which I wanted to give the book as a gift. The book is separated in chapters quite independent or each other. Some are especially funny. Here the list of the chapters and I will try to summarize my impressions about each of them in one sentence:

1 - Instructions for people that want to transform their home into a zoo.

2 - For those that are too lazy for a zoo, instructions on how to keep an aquarium.

3 - Still about the aquarium and recommendations of fishes that can do more interesting things than swimming from one corner to the other.

4 - And by choosing the right fishes the aquarium can be so interesting to observe that one can watch a soap opera drama under water.

5 - How animals can be fun to observe and funny way to observe them including edgy situations that almost took Lorentz to a sanatorium.

6 - Animals that deserves pity based on their intelligence: which are the dumbest and the smartest ones. My favorite chapter and here my favorite quote:

"And now for the eagle! hate to shatter the fabulous illusions about this glorious bird, but I must adhere to the truth: all true birds of prey are, compared with passerines or parrots, extremelly stupid creatures." p. 72 

7 - List of animals one can buy, totally not applicable to nowadays rules.

8 - Animals has much less to say that we think.

9 - Water shrews can be insatiable and cruel.

10 - Better having a dog.

11 - But never jackdaws, they can scape easily.

12 - A fox can always give the other face, but humans (and doves) don’t. 

The book is also nicely illustrated with Lorentz drawings. I selected the funniest and the coolest.

1- Funniest. p 64. It illustrates Lorentz’s attempts to replace the mother mallard for the Mallard chicks. When he was trying to figure out the minimum requirements the Mallard chicks would have to take him as their mom he was caught on this weird action:

2 - Cooler. p. 187. When jackdaws perform instructional flights for young ones, they can move the tail side to side as a gestural indication to the young to follow them, just like a ”follow me” sign. I found it super clever and sweet at the same and the drawing so cool that maybe one day I turn it into a tattoo. So far I do not have any.

One might claim Lorentz is anthropomorphic in the way he describes things and sometimes he is and even recognize but try to work around. Impossible not to be. We will always see things through humanized perspective unless we turn into zebras then we will see the world like zebras. I am not supporting the anthropomorphism, I also think it is possible and we should learn how to minimize this unavoidable effect. But Lorentz anthropomorphism does not invalidate his findings, do not take his merit as a dedicated naturalist away and, the most important, give some fun to his narrative.