“Crows are bored. They suffer from being too intelligent for their station in life. Respectable evolutionary success is simply not, for these brainy and complex birds, enough. They are dissatisfied with the narrow goals and horizons of that tired old Darwinian struggle. On the lookout for a new challenge.
Keep that in mind next time you run into a crow. Look the bird in the eye. Consider its frustrations. Try to say something stimulating.”
Excerpted from Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature, a collection of essays by David Quammen. © 2008, 1985. With permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company.
