The Kookaburras' Song: Exploring Animal Behavior in Australia

John Alcock's status as the dean of animal behaviour studies is delightfully illustrated by this excellent book. A collection of over two dozen essays on the conduct of various animal [and one plant] species relate the findings of an Australian sabbatical. Using his own and other's research he poses questions arising from a medley of animal antics. How have these behaviours come about? He shows how these queries have adaptive evolutionary roots. The beauty of Darwin's idea, he reminds us, is that it provides us with "an adaptationist foundation" for testing hypotheses, arguments and ideas. Adaptations are subtle, often requiring careful perception and analysis. With careful study and cautious speculation he provides some stimulating ideas about the things he observed. The examples are chiefly birds and insects. The first is Kookaburra, the "alarm clock" of Australian mornings, is famous for its raucous wake-up call. When other birds may sing, caw or carol throughout the day, why does Kooka limit himself [and it's the males doing the laughter] to this brief, but delightful, period? Put simply, it's an energy saving device! Once the territorial claim has been vocally established, he can go on to feeding or courting. Other birds exhibit the immense variation evolution has produced. The Mallee Fowl, a bush dweller may seem "a dream come true" for some. This turkey-sized bird upsets gender patterns. The male bird spends weeks building a five-metre wide nest, enticing a mate to join him, "allowing" her to deposit thirty eggs, then lets her wander off while he meticulously controls the nest environment ensuring a successful hatch. Further north, Bowerbird building is also the male's role. He constructs complex and gaudy structures, although not to the Mallee Fowl's immensity. Here, however, the bower is merely the conjugal boudoir, with the impregnated female left to wander away for both nest building and chick rearing. Wasps display contrasting practices. With these insects, nest building is nearly uniformly a female task. Males, however, make contributions to mating and reproduction in many other ways. One wasp will bring nectar to a potential mate, then take her wingless body around from flower to flower as they seek a nest site. Other males are even more energetic. They will grab a moth or other large insect, then hang from a twig using the capture as bait. Wasp nesting behaviours offer yet more varieties in practice. One species employs a "housemaid" to guard and clean a ground nest. Such maintenance allows the food-bearing mother to fly directly into the nest, thereby avoiding predators. Alcock's easy style in this book keeps you at his side. His text is enhanced by Marilyn Stewart's fine drawings. Good maps provide location reference and ranges of the subjects. His science is presented in a conversational, almost friendly manner. He wants you to share his awe, his interest, and his conclusions. We must be grateful

Written by American biologist John Alcock (along with excellent illustrations by Marilyn Hoff Stewart), this book chronicles Alcock animal observations throughout the land Down Under. Alcocok observed the intimate details of the birth, breeding habits, feeding habits, and sometimes death of a large variety of Australian birds, insects, and mammals. Each chapter devoted to a particular species, he covers not only well known species such as the kookaburra, flying fox, and platypus, but lesser known ones (at least to Americans), such as the northern logrunner, resin wasp, and silver gull. Alcock not only covers the life habits of a number of species, but also during the course of the book, using these species as examples, explores many concepts in biology. Why do birds sing so early in the morning? Are marsupials really primitive and not able to compete with placental mamamls (such as dogs and horses)? Particulary interesting are his speculations on adaptations on animals. Do all the features of an animal, from the cooperative efforts by grey-crowned babblers to raise a brood of young to the red tail feathers in the otherwise black red-tailed cockatoo all surve useful purposes in species (and individual) survival and were the results of evoultion, or is it wrong to atttribute every feature and behavior an animal to direct survival of individuals and the production of new offspring?A highly worthwhile and readable book, I recommend it.