William Thorpe

William Homan Thorpe , ( April 1, 1902 , † April 7, 1986 ) was a professor at Cambridge University and an important British zoologist and behavioral scientist , u. a. in the field of ornithology .

Together with Nikolaas Tinbergen , Patrick Bateson and Robert Hinde , William Thorpe made a significant contribution to establishing the still young biological field of behavioral research in Great Britain after the Second World War .

In the 1940s, Thorpe was the first European researcher to use the method of sound spectrography to analyze the fine structure of birdsong; in England there was only one such device at the time. Here, the sound signal, comparable to the refraction of light with the help of a prism, is broken down into individual frequency components and displayed graphically. In this way, many acoustic properties can be analyzed, e.g. B. pitches and intensities (volumes) that change over time.

In 1948 Thorpe founded the trade journal Behavior together with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Gerard Baerends .

Fonts (selection)

• Bird-Song: The biology of vocal communication and expression in birds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1961, (= Cambridge monographs in experimental biology , Volume 12).
• Duetting and antiphonal song in birds. Its extent and significance. Brill, Leiden 1972, ISBN 90-04-03432-3 (= Behavior Supplements , Volume 18).
• Learning and Instinct in Animals. Methuen, London 1969, ISBN 0-416-57920-5 .
• Science, Man and Morals. Based upon the Freemantle lectures, delivered at Balliol College, Oxford, Trinity term 1963. Greenwood, Westport (Conn.) 1976, ISBN 0-8371-8143-7 .
• The origins and rise of ethology. The science of the natural behavior of animals. Heinemann, London 1979, ISBN 0-435-62441-5 .

literature

• Maxime Metzmacher: L'apprentissage du chant chez le Pinson des arbres (Fringilla coelebs): une réévaluation des conclusions de Thorpe. In: Alauda. Volume 84, 2016, pp. 237-239, brief summary .