主题：一个人和一个完整世界 -- 郭十一

The Animals Remember

All was not lost, however, for new evidence came in from an entirely unexpected

quarter — the animal kingdom. Animals have some remarkably developed instincts,

which sometimes recapitulate their evolutionary history. Witness the so-called loud

bats with their FM sonar chirps by which they can search out and classify a moving

target — usually moths, their favourite meal. But it remained for a bird, by its remark-

able migratory path, to first demonstrate that the New World really has drifted away

from the Old World.

This doughty bird, the sooty hoodwink, Puffinus oceanicus, winters in the Atlantic

sector of Antarctica; then each spring it heads north, determined to nest in far away

Spitzbergen. As if flying to this remote island is not a sufficient demonstration of

fortitude, this bird chooses a zigzag path. First it touches down in Southwest Africa

where, because of its confused and dazed habit of stumbling about (apparently

searching for fresh bearings), it is locally termed the random walkabout. Then this

bird executes further zigs and zags across the ocean as it threads its way north. On

April 1st, the frayed remnants of the flock touch down on the British Isles at Lands

End. (Remarkable as it is, their navigation sometimes goes awry. An errant flock was

seen in 1967 far off course in the spaghetti fields of the Po valley.) Toward the end of

April the sooty hoodwink finally reaches its destination, Spitzbergen.

This curious migration path finds ready explanation once we recognize that

continental drift has occurred. If we close the Atlantic Ocean, we find that the zigzag

path becomes a straight line, a great circle route, or the shortest distance between

Antarctica and Spitzbergen.

出处:

Collected reprints / Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratories [and] Pacific Oceanographic Laboratories

注:

这个例子出自这本书中的

Continents Adrift: New Orthodoxy or Persuasive Joker?

作者显然对大陆漂移说持嘲讽态度。

但文中没有看到来源说明。