Edmund Selous

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Edmund Selous (1857-1934) was a British ornithologist and writer. He was the younger brother of big-game hunter Frederick Selous.

Selous was a strong proponent of non-destructive bird-study as opposed to the collection of skins and eggs. In his book Bird Watching (Selous, 1901) he said:

"For myself, I must confess that I once belonged to this great, poor army of killers, though happily, a bad shot, a most fatigable collector, and a poor half-hearted bungler, generally. But now that I have watched birds closely, the killing of them seems to me as something monstrous and horrible; and, for every one that I have shot, or even only shot at and missed, I hate myself with an increasing hatred. I am convinced that this most excellent result might be arrived at by numbers and numbers of others, if they would only begin to do the same; for the pleasure that belongs to observation and inference is, really, far greater than that which attends any kind of skill or dexterity, even when death and pain add their zest to the latter. Let anyone who has an eye and a brain (but especially the latter), lay down the gun and take up the glasses for a week, a day, even for an hour, if he is lucky, and he will never wish to change back again. He will soon come to regard the killing of birds as not only brutal, but dreadfully silly, and his gun and cartridges, once so dear, will be to him, hereafter, as the toys of childhood are to the grown man."

Selous published a variety of books on natural history, especially birds, ranging from children’s books to more serious ornithological works. In his later years he published his idiosyncratic theory (Selous, 1931) that bird flocks coordinate their movements through a form of telepathy.

[edit] Bibliography

Books authored by Selous include:

1899 – Tommy Smith’s Animals. Methuen: London.
1901 – Beautiful Birds. Dent: London.
1901 – Bird Watching. Dent: London.
1905 – Bird Life Glimpses. George Allen.
1905 – The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands. With some notes on seals – and digressions. Dent: London.
1905 – The Romance of the Animal World - Interesting Descriptions of the Strange and Curious in the Natural History. Seeley & Co: London.
1906 – The Romance of Insect Life - Interesting Descriptions of the Strange and Curious in the Insect World. Seeley & Co: London.
1906 – Tommy Smith’s Other Animals. Methuen: London.
1910 – Jacks’s Insects. Methuen: London.
1911 – The Zoo Conversation Book. Mills & Boon: London.
1912 – The Zoo Conversation Book. Hughie's Second Visit. Mills & Boon: London.
1914 – The Wonders of the Insect World. Seeley Service: London.
1916 – The Wonders of Animal Life. Seeley Service: London.
1919 – Tommy Smith at the Zoo. Methuen: London.
1920 – Jacks’s Other Insects. Methuen: London.
1921 – The Wonders of Animal Life. Seeley Service: London.
1922 – Tommy Smith’s Birds. Methuen: London.
1927 – Realities of Bird Life. Being extracts from the diaries of a life-loving naturalist. Constable & Co: London.
1931 – Thought-transference (or what?) in birds. Constable & Co: London.
1933 – Evolution of Habit in Birds. Constable & Co: London.

[edit] References

Selous, Edmund. (1901). Bird Watching. J.M. Dent: London.
Selous, Edmund. (1931). Thought-transference (or what?) in birds. Constable & Co: London.
Simmons, K.E.L. (2004). Selous, Edmund (1857–1934), ornithologist and author. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.