Does the early bird really catch the worm?

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, of lightening conductor fame, was the first person to suggest that the clocks should be put forward in summer; his essay, ‘An Economical Project’, appeared in 1784 when the great man was living in Paris as an American delegate.

The idea was not taken seriously, however, until 1907 when another pamphlet, ‘Waste of Daylight’, was published in England. Its author, William Willet, an early riser, protested that hours of sunlight were being wasted by people sleeping on in the morning. Willet wanted the clocks put forward by 20 minutes on each Sunday of April and put back on the Sundays in September. He is said to have spent a fortune campaigning but to little effect. Then, in 1909, Robert Pearce introduced a bill in the House of Commons. The proposal was ridiculed, but it started a debate; the seed had been sown.

The clocks went forward in Kaiser Wilhelm II’s Germany, the first country to introduce such a measure, in summer 1916. Britain soon followed suit. During World War II, the clocks were advanced by two hours. Nowadays, a one-hour change is enshrined in European Union directives, but there is still opposition to the measure in some quarters; acquaintances of mine, light sleepers whose body clocks are disrupted by the change, find it difficult to adjust.

People are either larks or owls. Larks work best in the morning, whereas owls are grumpy Anti-Christs, until they’ve had their fix of coffee. It’s odd that the owls should be so common because, biologically, we are light-dependent creatures, who should shun the darkness. We tend to ‘look on the bright side’, seek ‘enlightenment’, ‘see the light’ and celebrate ‘Festivals of Light’. For Plato, light was synonymous with truth, beauty and goodness.

So why can’t the lazy-heads roll out of bed in the morning? Is it because we are ‘blow-ins’? Humans evolved in equatorial Africa, where it’s 12 hours on and 12 hours off all year round, as far as the sun is concerned. Our ancestors probably slept for 10 hours or more each night. Even though we live in temperate Europe, we are still Africans and have failed to adjust to the huge disparities in daylight length between winter and summer.

Our nearest relatives, the furry mammals, are mostly nocturnal, lying low during the day. By standing up on our hind legs with heads held high, we could keep a step ahead of our enemies. Going nude helped to cool us down: we could hunt during the heat of the day when the other mammals, sweltering in fur coats, were panting in their shady beds. We retained the hair on our heads, to protect our precious brains from the merciless sun. Well clear of the hot ground and cooled by the wind, our brains, generating a fifth of our body heat, became enormous. Good sight was important and we developed colour vision; few other mammals see colours. But something had to go, so we cut back on our sense of smell. The formula has worked well but, as soon as darkness falls, we’re in trouble and we know it. We fear ‘the terrors of the night’, each of us has a ‘dark side’, baddies are termed ‘black sheep’ and we called the great plague the ‘Black Death’.

Birds too are creatures of the light. They are not close relatives, but we love them more than we do our fellow mammals. Birds, like ourselves, are active by day and sleep at night. Their eyesight is about as good as ours and they see colours, as their glorious plumages proclaim. Nor have birds much sense of smell. Most of all, perhaps, they are great talkers. That too has to do with light.

The chattering begins at dawn. It’s not bright enough to go for breakfast, but the birds don’t waste time in idle gossip; the dawn chorus is the bird equivalent of scanning the daily newspaper. The principal items of interest are death notices and the social and personal column. Each male tells the neighbours that he has made it through the night, a Gerry Adams-style ‘I have not gone away you know’ declaration. If a bird has died during the night, its territory will be up for grabs; silence during the dawn chorus is the bird equivalent of a ‘for sale’ sign on a house. A bird knows the songs of his neighbours; a newcomer joining the tumult will be the focus of attention. Once the paper has been read, and the ownership of a territory proclaimed, it will be bright enough for breakfast.

But not all birds are early risers. Swifts and swallows feed on flying insects but there is little point in venturing out in the cool of the morning before potential victims, many of whom need the heat of the sun to get going, are on the wing. Owls, on the other hand, tend to shun the light completely, competing with the bats and hunting in darkness. Nightingales sing at night, nor has anybody come up with a really satisfactory explanation as to why they do so. Perhaps its a case of ‘time-management’; they don’t need so much sleep in the warm climates where they live, so they use the hours of darkness, profitably, to proclaim their territories and advertise for mates.