''King Solomon's Ring'' (, , referencing

1 Kings 4 1 Kings 4 is the fourth chapter of the Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible or the First Book of Kings in the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is a compilation of various annals recording the acts of the kings of Israel and Judah by a ...

:33) is a general-audience

zoological Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

book, written by

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

n scientist

Konrad Lorenz Konrad Zacharias Lorenz (Austrian ; 7 November 1903 – 27 February 1989) was an Austrian zoology, zoologist, ethology, ethologist, and ornithologist. He shared the 1973 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Nikolaas Tinbergen and Karl von ...

in 1949. The first English-language edition was published in 1952. The English title refers to the legendary

Seal of Solomon The Seal of Solomon or Ring of Solomon (, '; , ') is the legendary Seal (emblem), signet ring attributed to king Solomon in medieval mystical traditions, from which it developed in parallel within Jewish mysticism, Sufism, Islamic mysticism and ...

, a ring that supposedly gave King

Solomon Solomon (), also called Jedidiah, was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Israel (united monarchy), Kingdom of Israel and Judah, according to the Hebrew Bible. The successor of his father David, he is described as having been the penultimate ...

the power to speak to animals. Lorenz claimed to have achieved this feat of communication with several

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

, by raising them in and around his home and observing their behavior. ''King Solomon's Ring'' describes the methods of his investigation and his resulting conclusions about

animal psychology Comparative psychology is the scientific study of the behavior and mental processes of non-human animals, especially as these relate to the phylogenetic history, adaptive significance, and development of behavior. The phrase comparative psycholog ...

. In August 2003, it was

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

Book of the Week ''Book of the Week'' is a long-running BBC Radio 4 series, first broadcast in 1998. It features daily readings from an abridged version of a selected book read over five or occasionally ten weekday episodes. Each episode is approximately 15 min ...

read by

Nigel Anthony Nigel Anthony (born 23 December 1941) is an English theatre, television, narrator and radio actor. His theatre work includes ''Twelfth Night'', '' Dutch Uncle'', '' Happy End'', ''The Taming of the Shrew'' for the Royal Shakespeare Company and s ...

References

*Konrad Lorenz (1961) ''King Solomon's Ring'' Translated by Marjorie Kerr Wilson. Methuen, London. 202 pages. {{Konrad Lorenz 1949 non-fiction books Zoology books Works by Konrad Lorenz