Counting Crows:-)

Here is an interesting experiment that I came across in the article Ayn Rand and the Cognitive Revolution in Psychology by Dr. Robert Campbell (A Texas-Ex!)

The story of the following experiment was told in a university classroom by a professor of psychology. I cannot vouch for the validity of the specific numerical conclusions drawn from it, since I could not check it first-hand. But I shall cite it here, because it is the most illuminating way to illustrate a certain fundamental aspect of consciousness--of any consciousness, animal or human.

The experiment was conducted to ascertain the extent of the ability of birds to deal with numbers. A hidden observer watched the behavior of a flock of crows gathered in a clearing in the woods. When a man came into the clearing and went on into the woods, the crows hid in the tree tops and would not come out until he returned and left the way he had come. When three men went into the woods and only two returned, the crows would not come out: they waited until the third one had left. But when five men went into the woods and only four returned, the crows came out of hiding. Apparently, their power of discrimination did not extend beyond three units--and their perceptual-mathematical ability consisted of a sequence such as: one-two-three-many (Rand 1967, 57).

On an unrelated topic about crows (for Telugu speaking folks), when I was a kid my అమ్మ told me this (a mild) tongue twister: కాకీక కాకికి కాక కేకికా! ( కేకి = నెమలి in Telugu)
A Random funny quote:

Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.- Groucho Marx