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.