Paper-Chasers
It is really a very odd thing in the psychology (if the word be allowed) of birds that new habits spread rapidly ; birds, in short, learn readily. A member of a well-known family of observers is now collecting evidence of the novel rage of tits for the trituration of paper. The discovery by these energetic and friendly atomies of the cream contained in milk bottles deposited on doorsteps has now spread throughout this island, and here and there even milk vans are pursued and harried. The motive of this sort of robbery is manifest enough, but it has been succeeded by a practice which seems to be spreading widely and rapidly of attacking any form of loose paper, from labels on bottles to letter-paper and wall- paper. The British Trust for Ornithology is asking for further information on this apparently reasonless habit. There is no doubt at all that it is spreading. Do the birds tear paper, like young men in France, merely for wantonness, or is there food in paper ? Well, the next gre it discovery, they say, which is to save the human race from mass starvation, is to be the conversion of cellulose into digestible food.
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