GULLED BIRDS.
In my neighbourhood has been chronicled this week a quaint event indicating how easily birds, and the cleverest species of birds. may be gulled by human art. It suggests that perhaps, after all, the old story of Apelles the painter is not wholly fictional. After the belated fall of snow in the second week of April a pheasant's nest was discovered under a sort of mat of grass bents flattened over it. The keeper, therefore, removed the eggs and put some dummy eggs in their place to see whether the mother bird would return. She did ; and laid one more egg ; but, alas ! was then observed:by a rook (not a crow) who sucked the one real egg and carried off all the dummies. Two dayslater the thief had still failed to penetrate the deception, for it was seen in the park hammering away at the supposedly obstinate shell of one of the dummies ! It is always surprising to observe the ease with which birds carry eggs in their beaks. A cuckoo will carry her own, with- out any risk of breaking it. A skua gull will carry off a penguin's which is, of course, very big and heavy ; a herring gull will carry off a guillemot's. Some mammals have an equal skill. Somehow or other rats manage to remove hen's eggs. A grey squirrel was seen by a friend of mine running nimbly about tree trunks with a large egg in his jaw. As for foxes and some dogs they have no trouble at all in taking eggs any distance. I knew of one spaniel who was sent daily to collect the hen's eggs. He enjoyed the job and did it effectively.
*
Previous page
