All the other accolades that, over the years, we have claimed for our own species have eventually had to be shared, first with the higher primates and now with the “feathered apes” of the genus Corvus. Not only has Man the Toolmaker been forced to make room on his pedestal for orangutans and chimps, but he has also had to accept the crow that is perched on top of his head. By the same token, human social interactions have turned out to be remarkably similar to those of many primates and corvids. And if Hugin’s high jinks are anything to go by, it seems that Homo sapiens sapiens cannot even claim to be altogether exceptional in the arts of deceit. Yet the ability to string syllables together in a meaningful, grammatical order—to catch the world in a net of words—continues to stand as an exceptional and quintessentially human achievement. Although you may one day see a crow using a simple tool or a raven playing a trick, you are never going to find a bird with its beak in a book.
