In the dim recesses of our race-history our pithecoid ancestors in default of language may well have possessed telepathic powers for the communication of their simple ideas, which powers have gradually been rendered less necessary as language developed, and may ultimately, unless stimulated and exercised, finally perish from atrophy. Such a theory would be illustrated by those stories which are furnished by reliable travellers and missionaries with reference to the amazing transmission of news which at times appears to take place amongst native races of a low level of civilization under circumstances which preclude any opportunity for normal methods of communication. Nor, again, is it easy to avoid the conclusion that some form of telepathy exists among various forms of animal life. The “homing instinct” of the cat and the pigeon, and bewildering facts connected with the flight of birds of passage, inexplicable from any ordinary laws of experience, may conceivably be examples of a form of telepathy infinitely more regular and efficient than the fitful manifestations on the part of _homo sapiens_ which engage the attention of psychical researchers. It is not easy to find any ordinary explanation for the immediate rush of a scattered herd of cattle to any available shelter, when one of their number has been struck by the noiseless warble-fly. Or when I watch the curving flight of the beautiful ruffs and reeves round a Norwegian lake――the absolutely simultaneous rise, the instantaneous wheel of the whole flock in the fraction of a second――or, again, when I see hundreds of starlings rise together and afterwards return to their trees in complete unison, I find it difficult to regard these charming incidents as due to normal or even abnormal sight or hearing, and wonder whether here again some rudimentary but efficient form of telepathy may not be at work.