Re: Homing Pigeons? Try Homing Crocodiles...

[David Marjanovic <david.marjanovic@gmx.at>]

> I remember this as well.   It's a far more down to earth idea than birds 
> seeing magnetic fields.

Having a sensory organ _in the brain_ would be a major surprise! While not 
impossible, that's not exactly down-to-earth.

I thought pigeons had a magnetosensory organ in the beak somewhere?

> But - now, I can't resist.   Particularly in light of your poem - though
> maybe it was meant tongue in cheek.
>
> Do you suppose that ancient druids had magneto-sensory apparatus in their
> brains, and this is how they could find Earth's energy lines, and knew the
> best places to have ceremonies and erect structures?

<sigh>

First, please show me that such a thing as an "energy line" exists. Second, 
please show me that "energy lines" have anything to do with magnetism -- a 
magnetic field is a field and not a line. Third, I'm not aware of any 
structure erected by druids; if you're thinking Stonehenge, you're several 
thousand years off. Fourth, please tell me why "the best places to have 
ceremonies and erect structures" are a) the same thing and b) should have 
anything to do with "energy lines" _or_ magnetism. Fifth, please offer a 
speculation on how the magnetosensory sense could have become extinct in 
humans within the last 2000 years.

But offlist, please, before we all get the ax.

> > I remember reading--regarding "magneto-senory apparatus--that bird brains
> > contain minute traces of ? Was it magnetite? Or simply iron?

"Simply iron" is chemically next to impossible. Must be magnetite then. I 
remember reading it's present in human brains, too.