Animal Intelligence / The International Scientific Series, Vol. XLIV.

by George John Romanes

At Ardglass, co. Down, Ireland, is a long tract of turf coming to the edge of the rocks overhanging the sea, where cattle and geese feed; at a barn on this tract there was a low enclosure, with a door fastening by a hook and staple to the side-post: when the hook was out of the staple, the door fell open by its own weight. I one day saw a goose with a large troop of goslings coming off the turf to this door, which was secured by the hook being in the staple. The goose waited for a minute or two, as if for the door to be opened, and then turned round as if to go away, but what she did was to make a rush at the door, and making a dart with her beak at the point of the hook nearly threw it out of the staple; she repeated this manœuvre, and succeeded at the third attempt, the door fell open, and the goose led her troop in with a sound of triumphant chuckling. How had the goose learned that the force of the rush was needful to give the hook a sufficient toss?

Mrs. K. Addison sends me the following instance of the use of signs on the part of an intelligent jackdaw. The bird was eighteen months old, and lived in some bushes in Mrs. Addison's garden. She writes:—

I generally made a practice of filling a large basin which stands under the trees every morning for Jack's bath. A few days ago I forgot this duty, and was reminded of the fact in a very singular manner. Another of my daily occupations is to open my dressing-room shutters about eleven o'clock of a morning. Now these said shutters open almost on to the trees where Jack lives. The day I forgot his bath, when I opened the shutters I found my little friend waiting just outside them, as though he knew that he should see me there; and when he did he placed himself immediately in front of me, and then shook himself and spread out his wings just as he always does in his bath. The action was so suggestive and so unmistakable, that I spoke just as I would have done to a child—'Oh yes, Jack, of course you shall have some water.'

Mr. W. W. Nichols writes to 'Nature:'—

The Central Prison at Agra is the roosting-place of great numbers of the common blue pigeon; they fly out to the neighbouring country for food every morning, and return in the evening, when they drink at a tank just outside the prison walls. In this tank are a large number of fresh-water turtles, which lie in wait for the pigeons just under the surface of the water and at the edge of it. Any bird alighting to drink near one of these turtles has a good chance of having its head bitten off and eaten; and the headless bodies of pigeons have been picked up near the water, showing the fate which has sometimes befallen the birds. The pigeons, however, are aware of the danger, and have hit on the following plan to escape it. A pigeon comes in from its long flight, and, as it nears the tank, instead of flying down at once to the water's edge, will cross the tank at about twenty feet above its surface, and then fly back to the side from which it came, apparently selecting for alighting a safe spot which it had remarked as it flew over the bank; but even when such a spot has been selected the bird will not alight at the edge of the water, but on the bank about a yard from the water, and will then run down quickly to the water, take two or three hurried gulps of it, and then fly off to repeat the same process at another part of the tank till its thirst is satisfied. I had often watched the birds doing this, and could not account for their strange mode of drinking till told by my friend the superintendent of the prison, of the turtles which lay in ambush for the pigeons.

As a still more remarkable instance of the display of intelligence by a bird of this species, I shall quote the following observation of Commander R. H. Napier, also published in 'Nature' (viii., p. 324):—

A number of them (pouters) were feeding on a few oats that had been accidentally let fall while fixing the nose-bag on a horse standing at bait. Having finished all the grain at hand, a large 'pouter' rose, and flapping its wings furiously, flew directly at the horse's eyes, causing the animal to toss his head, and in doing so, of course shake out more corn. I saw this several times repeated—in fact, whenever the supply on hand had been exhausted. . . . . Was not this something more than instinct?

The following display of intelligence on the part of swallows is communicated to me by Mr. Charles Wilson. It can scarcely be attributed to accident, and does not admit of mal-observation. My informant says:—

Two swallows were building a nest in the verandah of a house in Victoria, but as their nest was resting partly on a bell-wire, it was by this means twice pulled down. They then began afresh, making a tunnel through the lower part of the nest, through which the wire was able to act without doing damage.

Another gentleman writes me of another use to which he has observed swallows put the artifice of building tunnels. Being molested by sparrows which desired to take forcible possession of their nest, a pair of swallows modified the entrance of the latter, so that instead of opening by a simple hole under the eaves of a house, it was carried on in the form of a tunnel.