ABSTRACT
Communication is widespread throughout the animal kingdom. Dr Doolittle, in the film of the same name, enthuses about the possibility of being able to 'talk to the animals'. This enthusiasm also infected many philosophers and psychologists, and led to reports of successful communication with parrots, dogs, dolphins, horses, chimps and gorillas among other species. A communicative signal successfully conveys information from transmitter to receiver. The requirement that a signal should cross space or time means humans and other organisms must entrust our emotions, feelings and thoughts to a physical code like a sound wave. The information content of a signal is the message. The message is in the signal, but only in the sense that it is recoverable from the signal by a suitably equipped receiver. A communicative signal carries its message in code. The best and most informative place to study animals communicating in their natural habitat, displaying the range of behaviours and potentialities evolved to suit that habitat.
