Abstract
DURING the last two hundred years our knowledge of natural and physical science has advanced by leaps and bounds, until, in most departments, it has risen to a level far exceeding anything which has been recorded during historic times. Hence, in dealing with improbable or impossible statements which have come down to us from classical or mediæval times, we are perhaps too apt to forget the old proverb that “there is no smoke without fire,” and to dismiss them at once as vulgar superstitions, instead of seeking for the substratum of truth which will often be found to underlie them. Even so plain and simple a statement as that ants store up food was long discredited; for, as the ants of Northern Europe do not possess this habit, it was supposed to have arisen from their having been seen carrying their pupæ (or, in common talk, “ant-eggs”). But a case which nearer concerns our present subject is that of the distant islands, upon which, as many Arabic writers gravely assured us, grew trees bearing fruit resembling human heads, which cry out “Wák-wák” at sunrise and sunset. What could be made of such a story? One fine day Mr. Wallace landed in the Aru Islands, and found that the Birds of Paradise were in the habit of settling on the trees in flocks, about sunrise, uttering this very cry. So the mystery was cleared up, though it is quite possible that Mr. Wallace himself may have been unaware of the existence of the legend when he put the explanation on record.
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KIRBY, W. Bees and Dead Carcases1. Nature 49, 555–556 (1894). https://doi.org/10.1038/049555c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/049555c0