I have been reading a charming book I got at a library sale for about 50cents recently: The Minds of Birds by Alexander F. Skutch. This is NOT a sentimental, mawkish, anthropomorphic sort of "ain't they sweet" kind of discussion! The author has been awarded the William Brewster Medal by the A.O.U. and the Hal Borland award by the editors of Audubon Magazine. The book covers everything about the inner life of birds--their mental, social, emotional, aesthetic and even altruistic states! Inferences are drawn from bird behavior--since that is all we have to go on--all over the world. I was amazed to discover, for instance, that birds not only use "tools", but can count and/or understand numeration up to eight
(their eight toes are analagous to our ten)--and some birds even engage in play! I hope somebody will find this book and enjoy it! It was published in 1996 by Texas A@M University Press. Mymm Ackley of Pueblo, Colorado, USA.
