Chapter VI (2)

First they carried a lot of watermelon seeds from the ground floor upstairs, and hid them under a pillow on a bed. Then they took from the kitchen a tablespoonful of cucumber seeds and hid them in the pocket of a vest that hung upstairs on a nail. In one night they removed from box number one, eighty five pieces of bee-hive furniture, and hid them in another box. On the following night they deposited in box number one about two quarts of corn and oats.

Western frontiersmen and others who live in the land of the pack rat relate stories innumerable of the absurd but industrious doings of these eccentric creatures. The ways of the pack rat are so erratic that I find it impossible to figure out by any rules known to me the workings of their minds. Strange to say, they are not fiends and devils of malice and destruction like the brown rat of civilization, and on the whole it seems that the destruction of valuable property is not by any means a part of their plan. They have a passion for moving things. Their vagaries seem to be due chiefly to caprice, and an overwhelming desire to keep exceedingly busy. I think that the animal psychologists have lost much by so completely ignoring these brain-busy animals, and I hope that in the future they will receive the attention they deserve. Why experiment with stupid and nerveless white rats when pack rats are so cheap?

It was in the wonderland that on the map is labeled "Arizona" that I met some astonishing evidences of the defensive reasoning power of the pack rat. In the Sonoran Desert, where for arid reasons the clumps of creosote bushes and salt bushes stand from four to six feet apart, the bare level ground between clumps affords smooth and easy hunting-grounds for coyotes, foxes and badgers, saying nothing of the hawks and owls.

Now, a burrow in sandy ground is often a poor fortress; and the dropping spine-clad joints of the tree choyas long ago suggested better defenses. In many places we saw the entrance of pack rat burrows defended by two bushels of spiny choya joints and sticks arranged in a compact mound-like mass. In view of the virtue in those deadly spines, any predatory mammal or bird would hesitate long before tackling a bushel of solid joints to dig through it to the mouth of a burrow.

Did those little animals collect and place those joints because of their defensive stickers,--with deliberate forethought and intention? Let us see.

In the grounds of the Desert Botanical Laboratory, in November 1907, we found the answer to this question, so plainly spread before us that even the dullest man can not ignore it, nor the most skeptical dispute it. We found some pack rat runways and burrow entrances so elaborately laid out and so well defended by choya joints that we may well call the ensemble a fortress. On the spot I made a very good map of it, which is presented on page 164. [Footnote: From "Camp-Fires on Desert and Lava" (Scribner's) page 304.] The animal that made it was the White-Throated Pack Rat (_Neotoma albigula_). The fortress consisted of several burrow entrances, the roads leading to which were defended by carefully constructed barriers of cactus joints full of spines.

The habitants had chosen to locate their fortress between a large creosote bush and a tree-choya cactus (_Opuntia fulgida_) that grew on bare ground, twelve feet apart. When away from home and in danger, the pack rats evidently fled for safety to one or the other of those outposts. Between them the four entrance holes, then in use, went down into the earth; and there were also four abandoned holes.

Connecting the two outposts,--the creosote bush and the choya,-- with the holes that were in daily use there were some much-used runways, as shown on the map; and each side of each runway was barricaded throughout its length with spiny joints of the choya. A few of the joints were old and dry, but the majority were fresh and in full vigor. We estimated that about three hundred cactus joints were in use guarding those runways; and no coyote or fox of my acquaintance, nor eke a dog of any sense, would rashly jump upon that spiny pavement to capture a rat.

Beyond the cactus outpost the main run led straight to the sheltering base of a thick mesquite bush and a palo verde that grew tightly together. This gave an additional ten feet of safe ground, or about twenty-five feet in all.

On our journey to the Pinacate Mountains, northwestern Mexico, we saw about twelve cactus-defended burrows of the pack rat, some of them carefully located in the midst of large stones that rendered digging by predatory animals almost impossible.

The beautiful little Desert Kangaroo Rat (_Dipodomys deserti_) has worked out quite a different system of home protection. It inhabits deserts of loose sand and creosote bushes, where it digs burrows innumerable, always located amid the roots of the bushes, and each one provided with three or four entrances,--or exits, as the occasion may require. Each burrow is a bewildering labyrinth of galleries and tunnels, and in attempting to lay bare an interior the loose sand caved in, and the little sprite that lived there either escaped at a distant point or was lost in the shuffle of sand.

The Gray Squirrel (_Sciurus carolinensis_).--This beautiful and sprightly animal quickly recognizes man's protection and friendship, and meets him half way. Go into the woods, sit still, make a noise like a nut, and if any grays are there very soon you will see them. The friendships between our Park visitors and the Park's wild squirrels are one of the interesting features of our daily life. We have an excellent picture of Mrs. Russell Sage sitting on a park bench with a wild gray squirrel in her lap. I have never seen red or fox squirrels that even approached the confidence of the gray squirrel in the truce with Man, the Destroyer, but no doubt generous treatment would produce in the former the gray squirrel's degree of confidence.

I never knew an observer of the home life of the gray squirrel who was not profoundly impressed by the habit of that animal in burying nuts in the autumn, and digging them up for food in the winter and spring. From my office window I have seen our silver- gray friends come hopping through eight or ten inches of snow, carefully select a spot, then quickly bore a hole down through the snow to Mother Earth, and emerge with a nut. Thousands of people have seen this remarkable performance and I think that the majority of them still ask the question: "_How_ does the squirrel know precisely where to dig?" That question cannot be answered until we have learned how to read the squirrel mind.

Small city parks easily become overstocked with gray squirrels that are not adequately fed, and the result is,--complaints of "depredations." Of course hungry and half-starved squirrels will depredate,--on birds' nests, fruit and gardens. My answer to all inquirers for advice in such cases is--_feed the squirrels, adequately, and constantly, on cracked corn and nuts, and send away the surplus squirrels._

At this time many persons know that the wild animals and birds now living upon the earth are here solely because they have had sufficient sense to devise ways and means by which to survive. The ignorant, the incompetent, the slothful and the unlucky ones have passed from earth and joined the grand army of fossils.

Take the case of the Rocky Mountain Pika, or little chief "hare," of British Columbia and elsewhere. It is not a hare at all, and it is so queer that it occupies a family all alone. I am now concerning myself with _Ochotona princeps,_ of the Canadian Rockies. It is very small and weak, but by its wits it lives in a country reeking with hungry bears, wolverines and martens. The pika is so small and so weak that in the open he could not possibly dig down below the grizzly bear's ability to dig.

And what does he do to save himself, and insure the survival of the fittest?

He burrows far down in the slide-rock that falls from the cliffs, where he is protected by a great bed of broken stone so thick that no predatory animal can dig through it and catch him. There in those awful solitudes, enlivened only by the crack and rattle of falling slide-rock, the harsh cry of Clark's nut-cracker and the whistling wind sweeping over the storm-threshed summits and through the stunted cedar, the pika chooses to make his home. Over the slide-rock that protects him, the snows of the long and dreary winter pile up from six to ten feet deep, and lie unbroken for months. And how does the pika survive?

When he is awake, _he lives on hay, of his own making!_

In September and October, and up to the arrival of the enveloping snow, he cuts plants of certain kinds to his liking, he places them in little piles atop of rocks or fallen logs where the sun will strike them, and he leaves them there until they dry sufficiently to be stored without mildewing. Mr. Charles L. Smith declared that the pikas know enough to change their little hay piles as the day wears on, from shade to sunlight. The plants to be made into hay are cut at the edge of the slide-rock, usually about a foot in length, and are carried in and placed on flat- topped rocks around the mouth of the burrow. The stems are laid together with fair evenness, and from start to finish the haymaking of the pika is conducted with admirable system and precision. When we saw and examined half a dozen of those curing hay piles, we felt inclined to take off our hats to the thinking mind of that small animal which was making a perfectly successful struggle to hold its own against the winter rigors of the summits, and at the same time escape from its enemies.

The common, every-day Cotton-Tail Rabbit (_Lepus sylvaticus_) is not credited by anyone with being as wise as a fox, but that is due to our own careless habits of thought. It has been man's way, ever since the days of the Cavemen, to underrate all wild animals except himself. We are not going to cite a long line of individual instances to exhibit the mental processes or the natural wisdom of the rabbit. All we need do is to point to its success in maintaining its existence in spite of the enemies arrayed against it.

Take the state of Pennsylvania, and consider this list of the rabbit's mortal enemies:

450,000 well-armed men and boys, regularly licensed and diligently gunning throughout six weeks of the year, and actually killing each year about 3,500,000 rabbits!

200,000 farmers hunting on their own farms, without licenses.

Predatory animals, such as dogs, cats, skunks, foxes and weasels.

Predatory birds: hawks, eagles and owls.

Destructive elements: forest fires, rain, snow and sleet.

Now, is it not a wonder that _any_ rabbits remain alive in Pennsylvania? But they are there. They refuse to be exterminated. Half of them annually outwit all their enemies--smart as they are; they avoid death by hunger and cold, and they go on breeding in defiance of wild men, beasts and birds. Is it not wonderful-- the mentality of the gray rabbit? Again we say--the wild animal must think or die.

In recognizing man's protection and friendship, the rabbit is as quick on the draw as the gray squirrel. In our Zoological Park where we constantly kill hunting cats in order that our little wild neighbors, the rabbits, squirrels and chipmunks may live, the rabbits live literally in our midst. They hang around the Administration Building, rear and front, as if they owned it; and one evening at sunset I came near stepping out upon a pair that were roosting on the official door-mat on the porch. There are times when they seem annoyed by the passage of automobiles over the service road.

To keep hungry rabbits from barking your young apple trees in midwinter, spend a dollar or two in buying two or three bushels of corn expressly for them.

The sentry system of the Prairie-"Dog" in guarding "towns" is very nearly perfect. A warning chatter quickly sends every "dog" scurrying to the mouth of its hole, ready for the dive to safety far below. No! the prairie-"dog," rattlesnake and burrowing owl emphatically do NOT dwell together in peace and harmony in the burrow of the "dog." The rodent hates both these interloping enemies, and carefully avoids them. The pocket gopher does his migrating and prospecting at night, when his enemies are asleep. The gray squirrel builds for itself a summer nest of leaves. At the real beginning of winter the prairie-"dog" tightly plugs up with moist earth the mouth of his burrow; and he packs it with his nose. The round-tailed muskrat of Florida (_Neofiber alleni_) builds a little platform over the water of the marsh in which it lives, on which it builds its nest high and dry. The Hudsonian red squirrel will bark and scold at a human intruder for half an hour.

In Chapter IV I have already accorded the beaver a place with the most intelligent animals of the world. The books that have been written concerning that species have been amply justified. It is, however, impossible to refuse this important animal a place in any chapter devoted to the mental traits of rodents, and I deem it fitting to record here our latest experience with this remarkable species.

Our Last Beaver Experiment. In the autumn of 1921 we emptied and cleaned out our Beaver Pond. The old house originally built by the beavers in the centre of the pond, was for sanitary reasons entirely removed. Work on the pond was not finished until about October 25; and the beavers had no house.

It seemed to me a physical impossibility for the beavers to begin a new house at that late date and unassisted finish it by the beginning of winter. One beaver had escaped, and for the remaining three such a task would be beyond their powers. I decided to give them a helping hand, provided they would accept it, by providing them with a wooden house, which they might if they chose, entirely surround and snugly cover with mud and sticks.

But would they accept it in a grateful spirit, and utilize it? One cannot always tell what a wild animal will do.

With loose earth a low island with a flat top was built to carry the house. Its top was six inches above high-water mark, and (that would, if accepted) be the floor of the permanent house. A good, practicable tunnel was built to an underwater entrance.

Upon that our men set a square, bottomless house of wood, with walls two feet high, and a low roof sloping four ways. Over all this the men piled in a neat mound a lot of tree branches of kinds suitable for beaver food; and with that we left the situation up to the beavers. The finish of our work was made on October 28.

For a week there were no developments. The beavers made no sign of approval or disapproval. And then things began to happen. On November 5 we saw a beaver carrying a small green branch into the house for _bedding!_ That meant that our offering was going to be accepted.

The subsequent chronology of that beaver house is as follows:

Nov. 10. The beavers pulled all our brush away from the house, back to a distance of six or seven feet. The house stood fully exposed.

Nov. 11. They began to pile up mud and sticks against the base of the south wall.

Nov. 15. Mud-building to cover the house was in full progress.

Nov. 17. Much of our brush had been placed in the stock of food wood being stored for winter use in the pond west of the house.

Nov. 29. The outside of the house was completely covered up to the edges of the roof. The beavers were working fast and hard. No freezing weather yet.

Dec. 15. The roof was not yet covered. Ice had formed on the pond, and house-building operations were at an end until the spring of 1922.

XV

THE MENTAL TRAITS OF BIRDS

In comparison with mammalian mentality, the avian mind is much more elementary and primitive. It is as far behind the average of the mammals as the minds of fishes are inferior to those of reptiles.

Instinct Prominent in Birds. The average bird is more a creature of instinct than of reason. Primarily it lives and moves by and through the knowledge that it has inherited, rather than by the observations it has made and the things it has thought out in its own head.

But let it not for one moment be supposed that the instinctive knowledge of the bird is of a mental quality inferior to that of the mammal. The difference is in kind only, not in degree. As a factor in self-preservation the keen and correct reasoning of the farm-land fox is in no sense superior to the wonderful instinct and prescience of the golden plover that, on a certain calendar day, or week, bids farewell to its comfortable breeding-grounds in the cold north beyond the arctic circle, rises high in the air and launches forth on its long and perilous migration flight of 8,000 miles to its winter resort in Argentina.

The Migrations of Birds. Volumes have been written on the migrations of birds. The subject is vast, and inexhaustable. It is perhaps the most wonderful of all the manifestations of avian intelligence. It is of interest chiefly to the birds of the temperate zone, whose summer homes and food supplies are for four months of the year buried under a mantle of snow and ice. All but a corporal's guard of the birds of the United States and Canada must go south every winter or perish from starvation and cold. It is a case of migrate or die. Many of the birds do not mind the cold of the northern winter--if it is dry; and _if they could be fed in winter,_ many of them would remain with us throughout the year.

Consider the migratory habits of our own home favorites, and see what they reveal. After all else has been said, bird migration is the one unfathomable wonder of the avian world. Really, we know of it but little more than we know of the songs of the morning stars. We have learned when the birds start; we know that many of them fly far above the earth; we know where some of them land, and the bird calendars show approximately when they will return. And is not that really about _all_ that we do know?

What courage it must take, to start on the long, tiresome and dangerous journey! How do they know where to go, far into the heart of the South, to find rest, food and security? When and where do they stop on the way to feed? Vast areas are passed over without alighting; for many species never are seen in mid career. Why is it that the golden plover feels that it is worth while to fly from the arctic coast to Argentina?

Let any man--if one there be--who is not profoundly impressed by the combined instinct and the reasoning of migratory birds do himself the favor to procure and study the 47-page pamphlet by Dr. Wells W. Cooke, of the U. S. Department of Agriculture, entitled "Bird Migration." I wish I could reproduce it entire; but since that is impossible, here are a few facts and figures from it.

The Bobolink summers in the northern United States and southern Canada, and winters in Paraguay, making 5000 miles of travel each way.

The Scarlet Tanager summers in the northeastern quarter of the United States and winters in Colombia, Equador and northern Peru, a limit to limit flight of 3,880 miles.

The Golden Plover (_Charadrius dominicus_).--"In fall it flies over the ocean from Nova Scotia to South America, 2,400 miles--the longest known flight of any bird. In spring it returns by way of the Mississippi Valley. Thus the migration routes form an enormous ellipse, with a minor axis of 2,000 miles and a major axis stretching 8,000 miles from arctic America to Argentina." (Cooke.) The Arctic Tern (_Sterna paradisaea_), is "the champion long-distance migrant of the world. It breeds as far north as it can find land on which to build its nest, and winters as far south as there is open water to furnish it food. The extreme summer and winter homes are 11,000 miles apart, or a yearly round trip of 22,000 miles." (Cooke.)

By what do migrating birds guide their courses high in air on a pitch-dark night,--their busy time for flying? Do they, too, know about the mariner's Southern Cross, and steer by it on starlit nights? Equally strange things have happened.

The regular semi-annual migrations of birds may fairly be regarded as the high-water mark of instinct so profound and far-reaching that it deserves to rank as high as reason. To me it is one of the most marvelous things in Nature's Book of Wonders. I never see a humming-bird poised over a floral tube of a trumpet creeper without pausing, in wonder that is perpetual, and asking the eternal question: "Frail and delicate feathered sprite, that any storm-gust might dash to earth and destroy, and that any enemy might crush, _how_ do you make your long and perilous journeys unstarved and unkilled? Is it because you bear a charmed life? What is the unsolved mystery of your tiny existence in this rough and cruel world?"

We understand well enough the foundation principles of mammalian and avian life, and existence under adverse circumstances. The mammal is tied to his environment. He cannot go far from the circumpolar regions of his home. A bear chained to a stake is emblematic of the universal handicap on mammalian life. Survive or perish, the average land-going quadruped must stay put, and make the best of the home in which he is born. If he attempts to migrate fast and far, he is reasonably certain to get into grave danger, and lose his life.

The bird, however, is a free moral agent. If the purple grackle does not like the sunflower seeds in my garden, lo! he is up and away across the Sound to Oyster Bay, Long Island, where his luck may be better. Failing there, he gives himself a transfer to Wilmington, or Richmond, via his own Atlantic coast line.

The wonderful migratory instincts of birds have been developed and intensified through countless generations by the imperative need for instinctive guidance, and the comparatively small temptation to inductive reasoning based on known facts. Evidently the bird is emboldened to migrate by the comfortable belief that somewhere the world contains food and warmth to its liking, and that if it flies fast enough and far enough it will find it.

As a weather prophet, the prescience of the bird is strictly limited. The warm spells of late February deceive the birds just as they do the flowers of the peach tree and the apple. Often the bluebirds and robins migrate northward too early, encounter blizzards, and perish in large numbers from snow, sleet, cold and hunger.

The Homing Sense of Birds. We can go no farther than to say that while the homing instinct of certain species of birds is quite well known, the mental process by which it functions is practically unknown. The direction instinct of the homing pigeon is marvelous, but we know that that instinct does not leap full- fledged from the nest. The homer needs assistance and training. When it is about three months old, it is taken in a basket to a point a mile distant from its home and liberated. If it makes good in returning to the home loft, the distances are increased by easy stages--two, three, five, ten, twenty, thirty, fifty and seventy- five miles usually being flown before the bird is sent as far as 100 miles. The official long-distance record for a homing pigeon is 1689.44 miles, held by an American bird.

The homing instinct, or sense, is present in some mammals, but it is by no means so phenomenal as in some species of birds. In mammals it is individual rather than species-wide. Individual horses, dogs and cats have done wonderful things under the propulsion of the homing instinct, but that instinct is by no means general throughout those species. Among wild animals, exhibitions of the home-finding instinct are rare, but the annals of the Zoological Park contain one amusing record.

For emergency reasons, a dozen fallow deer once were quartered in our Bison range, behind a fence only sixty-six inches high. Presently they leaped out to freedom, disappeared in the thick northern forests of the Bronx, and we charged them up to profit and loss. But those deer soon found that life outside our domain was not the dream of paradise that they had supposed. After about a week of wandering through a cold, unsympathetic and oatless world those were sadder and wiser deer, and one night they all returned and joyously and thankfully jumped back into their range, where they were happy ever after.

Recognition of Sanctuary Protection. In this field of precise observation and reasoning, most birds,--if not indeed all of them,--are quick in discernment and accurate in deduction. The great gauntlet of guns has taught the birds of the United States and Canada to recognize the difference between areas of shooting and no shooting. Dull indeed is the bird mind that does not know enough to return to the feeding-ground in which it has been safe from attack. The wild geese and ducks are very keen about sanctuary waters, and no protected pond or river is too small to command attention. Our own little Lake Agassiz, in the New York Zoological Park, each year is the resort of hundreds of mallards and black ducks. And each year a number of absolutely wild wood ducks breed there and in spite of all dangers rear their young. Our wild-fowl pond, surrounded by various installations for birds, several times has been honored by visiting delegations of wild geese, seven of which were caught in 1902 for exhibition.

The most astounding example of avian recognition of protection and human friendship is the spectacle of Mr. Jack Miner's wild goose sanctuary at Kingsville, Ontario, not far from Detroit. With his tile works on one side and his home on the other, he scooped out between them clay for his factory and made a small pond. With deliberate and praiseworthy intention Mr. Miner planted there a little flock of pinioned wild Canada geese, as a notice of sanctuary and an invitation to wild flocks to come down for food, rest and good society.

Very slowly at first the wild geese began to come; but finally the word was passed along the line from Hudson Bay to Currituck Sound that Miner's roadhouse was a good place at which to stop. Year by year the wild geese came, and saw, and were conquered. So many thousands came that presently Mr. Miner grew tired of spending out of his own pocket more than $700 a year for goose corn; and then the Canadian government most commendably assumed the burden, and made Mr. Miner's farm a national bird preserve. [Footnote: Mr. Miner is writing his wild-goose story into a book: and the story is worth it!]

The annals of wild life protection literature contain many records and illustrations of the remarkable quickness and thoroughness of sanctuary recognition by birds. On the other hand I feel greatly annoyed by the failure of waterfowl to reason equally well regarding the decoys of duck-shooters. They fail to learn, either by experience or hearsay, that small flocks of ducks sitting motionless near a shore are loaded, and liable to go off. They fail to learn that it is most wise to settle well outside such flocks of alleged ducks, and that it is a fatal mistake to plump down on the top of a motionless bunch.

Protective Association of Wasps and Caciques. The colonizing caciques, of South America, representing four genera, are very solicitous of the safety of their colonies. In numerous cases, these colonies are found in association with wasps, one or more nests invariably being found near the nests of the birds. It is natural to infer that this strange association is due to the initiative of the birds. When monkeys attack the birds, the birds need the stinging insects.

As usual in the study of wild creatures, the first thing that we encounter in the wild bird is

Temperament. On this hangs the success or failure of a species in association with man. Temperament in the most intellectual wild creatures is just as evident and negotiable to the human eye as colors are in fur or feathers.

A vastly preponderating number of bird species are of sanguine temperament; and it is this fact alone that renders it possible for us to exhibit continuously from 700 to 800 species of birds. Sensible behavior in captivity is the one conspicuous trait of character in which birds mentally and physically are far better balanced than mammals. But few birds are foolishly nervous or hysterical, and when once settled down the great majority of them are sanguine and philosophical. Birds of a great many species can be caught in an adult state and settled down in captivity without difficulty; whereas all save a few species of mammals, when captured as adults, are irreconcilable fighters and many of them die far too quickly. In a well-regulated zoological park nearly every animal that has been caught when adult is a failure and a nuisance.

To name the species of birds that can be caught fully grown and settled down for exhibition purposes, would create a list of formidable length. It is indeed fortunate for us that this is true; for the rearing of nestlings is a tedious task.

A conspicuous exception to the rule of philosophic sedateness in newly caught birds is the loon, or great northern diver. That bird is so exceedingly nervous and foolish, and so persistent in its evil ways, that never once have we succeeded in inducing a loon to settle down on exhibition and be good. When caught and placed in our kind of captivity, the loon goes daft. It dives and dives, and swims under water until it is completely exhausted; it loses its appetite, and very soon dies. Of course if one had a whole marine biological station to place at the disposal of the foolish loon, it might get on.

There are other odd exceptions to the rule of normal bird conduct. Some of our upland game birds, particularly the Franklin grouse and ptarmigan of the Rocky Mountains, display real mental deficiencies in the very necessary business of self-preservation.

WILDNESS AND TAMENESS OF THE RUFFED GROUSE. The ruffed grouse is one of the most difficult of all North American game birds to keep in captivity. This fact is due largely, though not entirely, to the nervous and often hysterical temperament of this species. Some birds will within a reasonable time quiet down and accept captivity, but others throughout long periods,--or forever,-- remain wild as hawks, and perpetually try to dash themselves to pieces against the wire of their enclosures. Prof. A. A. Allen of Cornell once kept a bird for an entire year, only to find it at the end of that time hopelessly wild; so he gave the bird its liberty.

However, in this species there are numerous exceptions. Some wing- tipped birds have calmed down and accepted captivity gracefully and sensibly, and a few of the cases of this kind have been remarkable. The most astonishing cases, however, have been of the tameness of free wild birds, in the Catskills, and also near the city of Schenectady. A great many perfectly truthful stories have been published of wild birds that actually sought close acquaintance with people, and took food from their hands.

We have been asked to account for those strange manifestations, but it is impossible to do so. It seems that in some manner, certain grouse individuals learned that Man is not always a killer and a dangerous animal, and so those birds accepted him as a friend,--until the killers came along and violated the sanctuary status.

It is both necessary, and highly desirable for the increase of species, that all wild birds should fly promptly, rapidly and far from the presence of Man, the Arch Enemy of Wild Life. The species that persistently neglects to do so, or is unable, soon is utterly destroyed. The great auk species was massacred and extirpated on Funk Island because it could not get away from its sordid enemies who destroyed it for a paltry supply of _oil_.

The Fool Hen and Its Folly. In our own country there exists a grouse species so foolish in its mind, and so destitute of the most ordinary instinct of self-preservation that it has been known for many years as "the Fool Hen." Definitely, it is the Franklin Grouse (_Conachites franklini_), and its home is in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. This famous and pitiable victim of misplaced confidence will sit only eight feet up on a jack pine limb, beside a well travelled road, while Mack Norboe dismounts, finds a suitable stick, and knocks the foolish bird dead from its perch. I have seen these birds sit still and patiently wait for their heads to be shot off, one by one, with a .22 calibre revolver when all points of the compass were open for their escape.

All this, however, must be set down as an unusual and phenomenal absence of the most natural instinct of self-protection. The pinnated grouse, sage grouse, Bob White quail and ptarmigan exercise but little keen reason in self-protection. They are easy marks,--the joy of the pot-hunter and the delight of the duffer "sportsman."

Dullness of Instinct in Grouse and Quail. The pinnated grouse, which in Iowa and the Dakotas positively is a migratory bird, does know enough to fly high when it is migrating, but seemingly this species and the sage grouse never will grow wise enough to save themselves from hunters when on their feeding grounds. In detecting the presence of their arch enemy they are hopelessly dull; and they are slow in taking wing.

The quail is a very good hider, but a mighty poor flyer. When a covey is flushed by a collection of dogs and armed men, the lightning-quick and explosive get-away is all right; but the unshot birds do not fly half far enough! Instead of bowling away for two or three miles and getting clear out of the danger zone and hiding in the nearest timber, what do they do? They foolishly stop on the other side of the field, or in the next acre of brush, in full view of the hunters and dogs, who find it great fun to hustle after them and in fifteen minutes put them up again. Thus it is easy for a hunting party to "follow up" a covey until the last bird of it has been bagged.

Just before the five-year close season on quail went into effect in Iowa, this incident occurred:

On a farm of four hundred acres in the southern part of the state, two gunners killed so nearly up to their bag limit of _fifty birds per day_ that in ten days they went away with 400 quail. The foolish birds obstinately refused to leave the farm which had been their home and shelter. Day after day the chase with dogs and men, and the fusillade of shots, went briskly on. As a matter of fact, that outfit easily could have gone on until every quail on that farm had fallen.

It is indeed strange that the very bird which practices such fine and successful strategy in leading an intruder away from its helpless young, by playing wounded, should fail so seriously when before the guns. A hunted quail covey should learn to post a sentry to watch for danger and give the alarm in time for a safe flight.

But I know one quail species that is a glorious exception. It is Gambel's quail, of southern Arizona. I saw a good wing shot, Mr. John M. Phillips, hunt that quail (without dogs) until he was hot and red, and come in with more wrath than birds. He said, with an injured air:

"The little beggars won't rise! I don't want to shoot them on the ground, and the minute they rise above the creosote bushes they drop right down into them again, and go on running."

It was even so. They simply will not rise and fly away, as Bob White does, giving the sportsmen a chance to kill them, but when forced to fly up clear of the bushes they at once drop back again. [Footnote: A very few quail-killers of the East who oppose long close seasons contend that quail coveys "breed better" when they are shot to pieces every year and "scattered," but we observed that the quail of the Sonoran Desert managed to survive and breed and perpetuate themselves numerously without the benevolent cooperation of the "pump-gun" and the automatic shotgun.] While the study of avian mentality is a difficult undertaking, this is no excuse for the fact that up to this date (1922) that field of endeavor has been only scratched on its surface. The birds of the world are by no means so destitute of ideas and inventions that they merit almost universal neglect. Because of the suggestions they contain we will point out a few prominent mental traits in birds, chosen at random.

At the same time, let us all beware of seeing too much, and chary of recording scientific hallucinations. It is better to see nothing than to see many things that are not true! In ten octavo pages that particular rock can split wide open the best reputation ever grown.

Bird Architecture. The wisdom of birds in the selection of nesting sites, the designing of the best nest for their respective wants, and finally the construction of them, indicate instinct, reasoning power and mechanical skill of a high order. The range from the wonderful woven homes of the weaver bird and the Baltimore oriole down to the bare and nestless incubating spot of the penguin is so great that nothing less than a volume can furnish space in which to set it forth. But let us at least take a brief glance at a wide range of home-building activities by birds.

The orioles, caciques and weavers weave wonderful homes of fibrous material, often in populous communities.

The bower birds erect remarkable bowers, as playhouses.

The brush turkey scratches together a huge mound of sticks and leaves, four feet by ten or twelve wide at the base.

The vireo and many others turn out beautiful cup-like nests.

The hummingbird builds with the solidity and tenacity of the wasp.

The swallow is a wonderful modeler with mud.

The guacharo builds a solid nest like a cheese with a concave top.

The auklet, the puffin and the kingfishers burrow into the friendly and solid earth. The eider duck plucks from its own breast the softest, of feather linings for its nest.

The grebe thoughtfully keeps its nest above high-water mark by building on a floating island.

The murre and the guillemot do their best to escape their enemies of the land by building high upon inaccessible rock ledges.

The woodpecker trusts no living species save his own, and drills high up into a hollow tree-trunk for his home.

The cactus wren and crissal thrasher build in the geographical centres of tree choyas, so protected by 500,000 spines that no hawk or owl can reach them.

This catalogue could be extended to a great length; but why pile evidence upon evidence!

It cannot be correct to assume that the nesting activities of birds are based upon instinct alone. That theory would be untenable. New conditions call for independent thought, and originality of treatment. If the ancestral plans and specifications could not be varied, then every bird would have to build a nest just "such as mother used to make," or have no brood.

All bird students know full well how easily the robin, the wren, the hawk and the owl change locations and materials to meet new and strange conditions. A robin has been known to build on the running-board of a switch-engine in a freight yard, and another robin built on the frame of the iron gate of an elephant yard. A wren will build in a tin can, a piece of drain tile, a lantern, a bird house or a coat pocket, just as blithely as its grandmother built in a grape arbor over a kitchen door. All this is the hall mark of New Thought.

Whenever children go afield in bird country, they are constantly on the alert for fresh discoveries and surprises in bird architecture. Interest in the nest-building ingenuity and mechanical skill of birds is perpetual. The variety is almost endless. Dull indeed is the mind to which a cunningly contrived nest does not appeal. Tell the boys that it is _all right_ to collect _abandoned_ nests, but the taking of eggs and occupied nests is unlawful and wicked.

The Play-House of the Bower Bird. Years ago we read of the wonderful playhouses constructed by the bower birds of Australia and New Guinea, but nothing ever brought home to us this remarkable manifestation of bird thought so closely as did the sight of our own satin bower bird busily at work on his own bower. He was quartered in the great indoor flying cage of our largest bird house, and supplied with hard grass stems of the right sort for bower-making.

With those materials, scattered over the sand floor, the bird built his bower by taking each stem in his beak, holding it very firmly and then with a strong sidewise and downward thrust slicking it upright in the sand, to stand and to point "just exactly so." The finished bower was a Gothic tunnel with walls of grass stems, about eighteen inches long and a foot high. In making it the male bird wrought as busily as a child building a playhouse of blocks. Our bird would pick up pieces of blue yarn that had been placed in his cage to test his color sense, but never red,-- which color seemed to displease him. As the bird worked quietly yet diligently, one could not help longing to know what thoughts were at work in that busy little brain.

The most elaborate of all the bower bird play-houses is that constructed by the gardener bower bird, which is thus described by Pycraft in his "History of Birds":

"This species builds at the foot of a small tree a kind of hut or cabin, some two feet in height, roofed with orchid stems that slope to the ground, regularly radiating from the central support, which is covered with a conical mass of moss sheltering a gallery round it. One side of this hut is left open, and in front of it is arranged a bed of verdant moss, bedecked with blossoms and berries of the brightest color. As the ornaments wither they are removed to a heap behind the hut and replaced by others that are fresh. The hut is circular and some three feet in diameter, and the mossy lawn in front of it is nearly twice that expanse. Each hut and garden is believed to be the work of a single pair of birds. The use of the hut, it appears, is solely to serve the purpose of a playing-ground, or as a place wherein to pay court to the female, since it, like the bowers built by its near relatives, are built long before the nest is begun, this, by the way, being placed in a tree."

Most Birds Fear Man. With the exception of those that have been reared in captivity, nearly all species of wild birds, either in captivity or out of it, fear the touch of man, and shrink from him. The birds of the lawn, the orchard and the farm are always suspicious, always on the defensive. But of course there are exceptions. A naturalist like J. Alden Loring can by patient effort win the confidence of a chickadee, or a phoebe bird, and bring it literally to his finger. These exceptions, however, are rare, but they show conclusively that wild birds can be educated into new ideas.

The shrinking of wild birds from the hand of man is almost as pronounced in captivity as it is in the wilderness, and this fact renders psychological experiments with birds extremely difficult. It is really strange that the parrots and cockatoos all should take kindly to man, trust him and even like him, while nearly all other birds persistently fly, or run, or swim or dive away from him. A bird keeper may keep for twenty years, feeding daily, but his hawks, owls and eagles, the perchers, waders, swimmers and upland game birds all fly from him in nervous fear whenever he attempts to handle them. The exceptions to this rule, out of the 20,000 species of the birds of the world, are few.

Wild Birds that Voluntarily Associate with Man. The species that will do so are not numerous, and I will confine myself to some of those that I have seen.

The Indian adjutant, the mynah, hoopoe, vulture, robin, phoebe bird, bluebird, swallow, barn owl, flicker, oriole, jay, magpie, crow, purple grackle, starling, stork, wood pigeon, Canada goose, mallard, pintail, bob white and a few other species have accepted man at his face value and endeavored to establish with him a modus vivendi. The mallard and the graylag goose are the ancestors of our domestic ducks and geese. The jungle fowls have given us the domestic chickens. The wild turkey, the pheasants, the guinea fowl, the ostrich, the emu and the peacock we possess in domestication unchanged.

Caged Wild Birds Quickly Appreciate Sanctuary. Mr. Crandall reports that in the Zoological Park there have been many instances of the voluntary return to their cages of wild birds that have escaped from them. The following instances are cited, out of many that are remembered:

A wild hermit thrush, only two weeks in captivity, escaped from an outdoor cage. But he refused to leave the vicinity of his new home, and permanent food supply. He lingered around for two or three days, and finally a wise keeper opened the cage door when he was near it, and at once he went in.

A magpie escaped from an outside cage, and for a week he lingered around it unwilling to leave its vicinity. At last the other birds of the cage were removed, the door was left open, and the magpie at once went back home.

Bird Memory and Talk. Birds have few ways and means by which to reveal their powers of memory. The best exhibits are made by the talking parrots and cockatoos. The feats of some of these birds, both in memory and expression, are really wonderful. The startling aptness with which some parrots apply the language they possess often is quite uncanny. Concerning "sound mimicry" and the efforts of memory on which they are based, Mr. Lee S. Crandall, Curator of Birds, has contributed the following statement of his observations:

"Many birds, including practically all members of the parrot tribe, many of the crows and jays, as well as mynas and starlings, learn to repeat sounds, words and sentences. Ability varies with both species and individuals. Certain species show greater aptitude as a whole than other species, while there is a great difference between individuals of the same species. "Gray parrots are generally considered the most intelligent of their tribe, and are especially apt at imitating sounds, such as running water, whistles, etc. I have one at home which always answers a knock with 'Come in.' Often he furnishes the knock himself by pounding the perch with his bill, following it with 'Come in.' Amazon parrots are especially good at tunes, some specimens being able to whistle complicated airs and sometimes sing several verses in a high, clear voice. Both grays and Amazons often talk with great fluency, vocabularies having been reported of as many as one hundred words. Often there seems to be intelligent association of certain acts or conditions with corresponding sentences, these sometimes occurring with singular patness.

"Hill mynahs, of the genus _Eulabes,_ often talk as well as parrots. The common introduced European starling often says a few words quite clearly. I once knew a long-tailed glossy starling (_Lamprotornis caudatus_) which shared an aviary with an accomplished albino jackdaw. The starling had acquired much of the jackdaw's repertoire, and the 'conversations' carried on between the two birds were most amusing."

A raven in the Zoological Park says "Arthur," "Shut up," "All out" and "Now look what's here" as perfectly as any parrot.

Listed in the order of their ability to learn and remember talk, the important talking birds are as follows: African gray parrot, yellow-headed Amazon, other Amazons, the hill mynahs, the cockatoos, the macaws, and the various others previously mentioned.

It is safe to assert that all migratory birds display excellent powers of memory, chiefly by returning to their favorite haunts after long absences.

Recognition of Persons. Mr. Crandall says there can be no doubt of the ability of most birds to recognize individual persons. This is seen in the smallest species as well as in the largest. He once saw a bullfinch in the last stages of pneumonia and almost comatose, show an instant reaction to the presence of an owner it had not seen in weeks. Many birds form dislikes for individual persons. This is especially noticeable in the parrot tribe. A large male South American condor was friendly enough with two of his keepers but would instantly attack any other keeper or other person entering his enclosure, whether wearing the uniform or not. With his two approved keepers he was gentleness itself.

Parasitic Nesting Habits. In the bird world there are a few species whose members are determined to get something for nothing, and to avoid all labor in the rearing of their offspring. This bad habit is known of the Old World cuckoos, the American cow- birds, the South American rice grackle (_Cassidix_), and suspected in the pin-tail whydah (_Vidua serena_). It seems to reach its highest point in the cuckoos. It is believed that individuals lay their eggs only in the nests of species whose eggs resemble their own. Apparently much skill and intelligence is required for introducing parasitic eggs at the most favorable moment. This is equally true of other parasites.

Curator Crandall has taken several eggs and young of the rice birds from nests of two species of giant caciques in Costa Rica, but never saw an adult _Cassidix._ It is considered a very rare species, but probably is more sly than scarce. Young cuckoos eject unwelcome nestlings shortly after hatching.

Daily contact with a large and varied collection of birds great and small, gathered from every section of the habitable regions of the earth, naturally produces in time a long series of interesting cases of intelligence and behavior. Out of our total occurrences and observations I will offer two that reveal original thought.

Good Sense of the Wedge-Tailed Eagle. In discussing bird intelligence with Mr. Herbert D. Atkin, keeper of our Eagles Aviary and the cranes and water birds in the Flying Cage, he called to my attention two species of birds which had very much impressed him. Afterward he showed me all that he described. Keeper Atkin regards the wedge-tailed eagle, of Australia, as the wisest species with which he has to deal. In the first place, all four of the birds in that flock recognize the fact that he is a good friend, not an enemy, and each day they receive him in their midst with cheerful confidence and friendship. In the fall when the time comes to catch them, crate them and wheel them half a mile to their winter quarters in the Ostrich House, they do not become frightened, nor fight against being handled, and submit with commendable sense and appreciation.

The one thing on which the wedge-tailed eagle really insists when in his summer quarters, is his daily spray bath from a hose. When his keeper goes in to give the daily morning wash to the cage, the eagles perch close above his head and screech and scream until the spray is turned upon them. Then they spread their wings, to get it thoroughly, and come out thoroughly soaked. When the spray is merely turned upon their log instead of upon the birds as they sit higher up, they fly down and get into the current wherever it may be.