Thought-Transference (or What?) in Birds, published in 1931, must have one of the greatest titles of any fortean work. More importantly, in it ornithologist Edward Selous documented a profound mystery. A keen bird-watcher for many years, he witnessed first-hand many instances where birds behaved in ways that he could only explain in terms of psychic powers. He described in painstaking detail coordinated movement within flocks, including rooks, gulls, lapwings, dunlins, swans, and starlings. Rooks rose from a field “like a leaping up of black flame, so instantaneous and unanimous was it. It is transfused thought, thought transference – collective thinking practically.