I read Lorenz's book when I was a boy and have never forgotten it, except now that reading it again I see that any number of the animal facts I would spout to people, giving Lorenz as my reference, are severe distortions of his positions. I would tell people, for example, that lambs and sheep are totally different species, and in citing Lorenz I now realize he said nothing of the sort. One of the great things about KING SOLOMON'S RING is how many species it treats. We also had to read an earlier book by Lorenz, in which he discussed only dogs and how to train them. Did you know that Konrad Lorenz was the first scientist to discover that in every pacxk of dogs (even in any pair of two dogs) one dog will be the so-called "alpha male," even when they are technically female? Lorenz was a scientist, a trained observer, but he also had a big heart and this spills out into his books.

They are each of them veritable fountains of good writing and common sense, though sometimes he goes overboard in his enthusiasm.

Some of the animals hje observed in his heyday are acting differently nowadays! I wonder if that is part of natural selection, or if they are being changed due to the ozone layer brteaking up and global warming. Even the patterns of birds' migrations are no longer the same, and they seem to be no longer travelling the immense distances we once thought they did (from Tierra del Fuego to the Maritimes, for example).

In other ways, although dated, KSR remains one of Konrad Lorenz's great accomplishments. I remember meeting him around the time the United Nations honored him for his work with animals. He was a humble man with a witty grin, and the flourish of one who should have been an actor in the movies.

This book is true to Lorenz' style - humorous, intelligent, large hearted and adventurous. Besides being entertained, I came away with humility borne of the knowledge that human beings aren't truly supreme. Even the littlest fish exhibits interesting thought processes and overriding maternal extincts. One just has to look hard enough!

Confession - I'd never heard of Konrad Lorenz (even though he won the Nobel Prize in 1973), and I don't usually read books by Naturalists.

I was driving between business meetings during the day, when I happened to tune in to BBC Radio 4 (same as National Public Radio in the USA), and by accident caught a book reading of Chapter 10 regarding Dogs. Then on another day I caught Chapter 11 on Birds. Captivated, I actually pulled over so that I could hear the whole chapter & find out what the book was and who the Author was.

Then I ordered the book as a treat to myself for Christmas.

Fantastic! With some abridging 'on the fly', this book could even be read to/by a younger audience say down to 8 years old, who would enjoy, laugh & cry at some of the stories contained herein.

I wish my science teacher had read this to me when I was 8, rather than do some silly experiments with boring pond life (Chapter 2 would have taught me more about Pond Life)!