3 AUGUST 1929, Page 14

This device for attracting the beetles is not an accidental

discovery by one owl or pair of owls. The observers have watched the process for two seasons and a large number of owls have shared in it. The birds hunted in groups and evinced an almost uncanny intelligence in attacking coops at one end of the line while the keepers were watching at the other. They were finally outwitted by the agency of a boy with a dummy gun. They fled from this inoffensive Scylla on one side to the deadly Charybdis on the other. They were outwitted ; but from first to last their actions gave witness of calculated and premeditated action that goes nearer to intelligence than any instance I have ever met.