Animal Intelligence Part 26

The latter process is effected by strong punishment, which they continue until the unfortunate b.o.o.by yields up its dinner. The punishment consists in stabbing the victim with its powerful beak. Catesby and Dampier have both observed and described these habits, and it seems from their account that the plunderer may either commit highway robbery in the air, or lie in wait for the b.o.o.bies as they return to rest.

In ant.i.thesis to this habit of plundering other birds I may quote the following from 'Nature' (July 20, 1871), to show that the instinct of provident labour, so common among insects and rodents, is not altogether unrepresented in birds:--

The ant-eating woodp.e.c.k.e.r (_Melanerpes formicivorus_), a common Californian species, has the curious and peculiar habit of laying up provision against the inclement season. Small round holes are dug in the bark of the pine and oak, into each of which is inserted an acorn, and so tightly is it fitted or driven in, that it is with difficulty extricated. The bark of the pine trees, when thus filled, presents at a short distance the appearance of being studded with nails.

The following may also be quoted:--

It is the nature of this bird (guillemot), as well as of most of those birds which habitually dive to take their prey, to perform all their evolutions under water with the aid of their wings; but instead of dashing at once into the midst of the terrified group of small prey, by which only a few would be captured, it pa.s.ses round and round them, and so drives them into a heap; and thus has an opportunity of s.n.a.t.c.hing here one and there another as it finds it convenient to swallow them; and if any one pushes out to escape, it falls the first prey of the devourer. The manner in which this bird removes the egg of a gull or hen to some secure place to be devoured, when compared with that in which a like conveyance is made by the parent for the safety of its future progeny, affords a striking manifestation of the difference between appet.i.te and affection. When influenced by affection, the brittle treasure is removed without flaw or fracture, and is replaced with tender care; but the plunderer at once plunges his bill into its substance, and carries it off on its point.[161]

Speaking of the feeding habits of the lapwing, Jesse says:--

When the lapwing wants to procure food, it seeks for a worm's cast, and stamps the ground by the side of it with its feet. After doing this for a short time, the bird waits for the issue of the worm from its hole, which, alarmed at the shaking of the ground, endeavours to make its escape, when it is immediately seized, and becomes the prey of the ingenious bird.

The lapwing also frequents the haunts of moles, which, when in pursuit of worms on which they feed, frighten them, and the worm, in attempting to escape, comes to the surface of the ground, when it is seized by the lapwing.[162]

Again,--

A lady of Dr. E. Darwin's acquaintance saw a little bird repeatedly hop on a poppy stem, and shake the head with his bill, till many seeds were scattered, when it settled on the ground and picked up the seeds.[163]

It is a matter of common remark that in countries where vultures abound, these birds rapidly 'gather together where the carca.s.s is,' although before the death of their prey no bird was to be seen in the sky. The question has always been asked whether the vultures are guided to the carca.s.s by their sense of smell or by that of sight; but this question is really no longer an open one. When Mr. Darwin was at Valparaiso he tried the following experiment. Having tied a number of condors in a long row, and having folded up a piece of meat in paper, he walked backwards and forwards in front of the row, carrying the meat at a distance of three yards from them, 'but no notice whatever was taken.'

He then threw the meat upon the ground, within one yard of an old male bird; 'he looked at it for a moment with attention, but then regarded it no more.' With a stick he next pushed the meat right under the beak of the bird. Then for the first time the bird smelled it, and tore open the paper 'with fury, and at the same moment every bird in the long row began struggling and flapping its wings.'[164] Thus there can be no doubt that vultures do not depend on their sense of smell for finding carrion at a distance. Nor is it mysterious why they should find it by their sense of sight. If over an area of many square miles there are a number of vultures flying as they do at a very high elevation, and if one of the number perceives a carca.s.s and begins to descend, the next adjacent vultures would see the descent of the first one, and follow him as a guide, while the next in the series would follow these in the same way, and so on.

Coming now to special instincts relating to incubation and the care of offspring, a correspondent writes:--

Last spring I had a pair of canaries, in an ordinary breeding cage (with two small boxes for nests in a compartment at one end). In due course the first egg was laid, which I inspected through the little door made for that purpose. The next day I looked again; still only one egg, and so for four or five days. It being evident, from the appearance of the hen, that there were more eggs coming, and as she seemed in good health, I supposed she might have broken some; and I took out the box, and examined it carefully for the sh.e.l.ls (but without pulling the nest to pieces), and found nothing, until towards the beginning of another week I went to take the one egg away, as the hen seemed preparing to sit upon it. There were two eggs!

The next morning, to my surprise, she was sitting upon six eggs! She must therefore have buried four of them in the four corners of the box, and so deep that I had been unable to find them. At first I thought that she had done so merely from dislike at their being looked at, but on reflection it has occurred to me that she did it that all might be hatched at the same time (as they subsequently were); for she was perfectly tame, and would almost suffer herself to be handled when on her nest. Wild birds never seem to conceal their eggs before sitting; but then (having more amus.e.m.e.nts than cage birds) they do not revisit their eggs after laying, until they have laid their number, whereas a caged bird, having nothing to divert her attention from her nest, often sits on it the greater part of the day.

I am not aware that this curious display of forethought on the part of a caged bird has been hitherto recorded, and seeing, as my correspondent points out, that it has reference to the changed conditions of life brought about by domestication, it may be said to const.i.tute the first step in the development of a new instinct, which, if the conditions were of sufficiently long continuance, might lead to an important and permanent change of the ancestral instinct.

I have several interesting facts, also communicated to me by correspondents, similarly relating to individual variations of the ancestral instinct of incubation in order to meet the requirements of a novel environment. Thus Mr. J. F. Fisher tells me that while he was a commander in the East India trade he always took a quant.i.ty of fowls to sea for food. The laying-boxes being in a confined s.p.a.ce, the hens used to quarrel over their occupancy; and one of the hens adopted the habit of removing the 'nest-eggs' which Mr. Fisher placed in one of the boxes to another box of the same kind not very far away. He watched the process through a c.h.i.n.k of a door, and 'saw her curl her neck round the egg, thus forming a cup by which she lifted the egg,' and conveyed it to the other box. He adds:--

I can give no information as to the more recondite question _why_ the egg was removed, or the fastidious preference of the one box over the other, or the inventive faculty that suggested the neck as a makeshift hand; but from the despatch with which she effected the removal of the egg in the case I saw, I have no doubt that this hen was the one which had performed the feat so often before.

The explanation of the preference shown for the one box over the other may, I think, be gathered from another part of my correspondent's letter, for he there mentions incidentally that the box in which he placed the nest-egg, and from which the hen removed it, was standing near a door which was usually open, and thus situated in a more exposed position than the other box. But be this as it may, considering that among domestic fowls the habit of conveying eggs is not usual, such isolated cases are interesting as showing how instincts may originate.

Jesse gives an exactly similar case ('Gleanings,' vol. i., p. 149) of the Cape goose, which removed eggs from a nest attacked by rats, and another case of a wild duck doing the same.

In the same connection, and with the same remarks, I may quote the following case in which a fowl adopted the habit of conveying, not her eggs, but her young chickens. I quote it from Houzeau ('Journ.,' i., p.

332), who gives the observation on the authority of his brother as eye-witness. The fowl had found good feeding-ground on the further side of a stream four metres wide. She adopted the habit of flying across with her chickens upon her back, taking one chicken on each journey. She thus transferred her whole brood every morning, and brought them back in a similar way to their nest every evening. The habit of carrying young in this way is not natural to Grallinaceae, and therefore this particular instance of its display can only be set down as an intelligent adjustment by a particular bird.

Similarly, a correspondent (Mr. J. Street) informs me of a case in which a pair of blackbirds, after having been disturbed by his gardener looking into their nest at their young, removed the latter to a distance of twenty yards, and deposited them in a more concealed place.

Partridges are well known to do this, and similarly, according to Audubon, the goatsucker, when its nest is disturbed, removes its eggs to another place, the male and female both transporting eggs in their beaks.[165]

Still more curiously, a case is recorded in 'Comptes Rendu' (1836) of a pair of nightingales whose nest was threatened by a flood, and who transported it to a safe place, the male and the female bearing the nest between them.

Now, it is easy to see that if any particular bird is intelligent enough, as in the cases quoted, to perform this adjustive action of conveying young--whether to feeding-grounds, as in the case of the hen, or from sources of danger, as in the case of partridges, blackbirds, and goatsuckers--inheritance and natural selection might develop the originally intelligent adjustment into an instinct common to the species. And it so happens that this has actually occurred in at least two species of birds--viz., the woodc.o.c.k and wild duck, both of which have been repeatedly observed to fly with their young upon their backs to and from their feeding-ground.

Couch gives some facts of interest relating to the mode of escape practised by the water-rail, swan, and some other aquatic birds. This consists in sinking under water, with only the bill remaining above the surface for respiration. When the swan has young, she may sink the head quite under water in order to allow the young to mount on it, and so be carried through even rapid currents.

The same author remarks that--

Many birds will carefully remove the meetings of the young from the neighbourhood of their nests, in order not to attract the attention of enemies; for while we find that birds which make no secret of their nesting-places are careless in such matters, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r and the marsh t.i.t in particular are at pains to remove even the chips which are made in excavating the cavities where the nests are placed, and which might lead an observer to the sacred spot.

Similarly, Jesse observes:--

The excrement of the young of many birds who build their nests without any pretensions to concealment, such as the swallow, crow, &c., may at all times be observed about or under the nest; while that of some of those birds whose nests are more industriously concealed is conveyed away in the mouths of the parent birds, who generally drop it at a distance of twenty or thirty yards from the nest. Were it not for this precaution, the excrement itself, from its acc.u.mulation, and commonly from its very colour, would point out the place where the young were concealed.

When the young birds are ready to fly, or nearly so, the old birds do not consider it any longer necessary to remove the excrement.

Sir H. Davy gives an account of a pair of eagles which he saw on Ben Nevis teaching their young ones to fly; and every one must have observed the same thing among commoner species of birds. The experiments of Spalding, however, have shown that flying is an instinctive faculty; so that when he reared swallows from the nest and liberated them only after they were fully fledged, they flew well immediately on being liberated.

Therefore, the 'teaching to fly' by parent birds must be regarded as mere encouragement to develop instinctive powers, which in virtue of this encouragement are probably developed sooner than would otherwise be the case.

A few observations may here be offered on some habits which do not fall under any particular heading.

The habit which many small birds display of mobbing carnivorous ones is probably due to a desire to drive off the enemy, and perhaps also to warn friends by the hubbub. It may therefore perhaps be regarded as a display of concerted action, of which, however, we shall have better evidence further on. I have seen a flock of common terns mob a pirate tern, which shows that this combined action may be directed as much against robbery as against murder. Couch says he has seen blackbirds mobbing a cat which was concealed in a bush, and here the motive would seem to be that of warning friends rather than that of driving away the enemy.

I have observed among the sea-gulls at the Zoological Gardens a curious habit, or mode of challenge. This consists in ostentatiously picking up a small twig or piece of wood, and throwing it down before the bird challenged, in the way that a glove used to be thrown down by the old knights. I observed this action performed repeatedly by several individuals of the glaucous and black-back species in the early spring-time of the year, and so it probably has some remote connection with the instinct of nest-building.

_Nidification._

In connection with the habits and instincts peculiar to certain species of birds, I may give a short account of the more remarkable kinds of nidification that are met with in this cla.s.s of animals. As the account must necessarily be brief, I shall only mention the more interesting of the usual types.

Petrels and puffins make their nests in burrows which they excavate in the earth. The great sulphur mountain in Guadaloupe is described by Wa.s.ser as 'all bored like a rabbit warren with the holes that these imps (_i.e._ petrels) excavate.' In the case of the puffin it is the male that does the work of burrowing. He throws himself upon his back in the tunnel which he has made, and digs it longer and longer with his broad bill, while casting out the mould with his webbed feet. The burrow when finished has several twists and turns in it, and is about ten feet deep.

If a rabbit burrow is available, the puffin saves himself the trouble of digging by taking possession of the one already made. The kingfisher and land-martin also make their nests in burrows.

Certain auks lay their single egg on the bare rock while the stone curlew and goatsucker deposit theirs on the bare soil, returning, however, year after year to the same spot. Ostriches sc.r.a.pe holes in the sand to serve as extemporised nests for their eggs promiscuously dropped, which are then buried by a light coating of sand, and incubated during the day by the sunbeams, and at night by the male bird. Sometimes a number of female ostriches deposit their eggs in a common nest, and then take the duty of incubation by turns. Similarly, gulls, sandpipers, plovers, &c., place their eggs in shallow pits hollowed out of the soil.

The kingfisher makes a bed of undigested fish-bones ejected as pellets from her stomach, and 'some of the swifts secrete from their salivary glands a fluid which rapidly hardens as it dries on exposure to the air into a substance resembling isingla.s.s, and thus furnish the "edible birds' nests" that are the delight of the Chinese epicures.'[166]

The house-martin builds its nest of clay, which it sticks upon the face of a wall, and renders more tenacious by working into it little bits of straw, splinters of wood, &c. According to Mr. Gilbert White:--

That this work may not, while it is soft and green, pull itself down by its own weight, the provident architect has prudence and forbearance enough not to advance her work too fast; but by building only in the morning, and by dedicating the rest of the day to food and amus.e.m.e.nt, gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. About half an inch seems a sufficient layer for a day. Thus careful workmen, when they build mud walls (informed at first perhaps by these little birds), raise but a moderate layer at a time, and then desist, lest the work should become top-heavy, and ruined by its own weight. By this method, in about ten or twelve days is formed a hemispheric nest, with a small aperture towards the top, strong, compact, and warm, and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it was intended.

Other birds build in wood. The tomt.i.t and the woodp.e.c.k.e.r excavate a hole in a tree, and carefully carry away the chips, so as not to give any indication of the whereabouts of their nests. Wilson says that the American woodp.e.c.k.e.r makes an excavation five feet in depth, of a tortuous form, to keep out wind and rain.

The orchard starling suspends its nest from the branches of a tree, and uses for its material tough kinds of gra.s.s, the blades of which it weaves together. Wilson found one of these blades to be thirteen inches long, and to be woven in and out thirty-four times.

We may next notice the weaver (_Ploceus textor_) and tailor (_Prinia_, _Orthotomus_, and _Sylvia_). The former intertwines slender leaves of gra.s.s so as to produce a web sufficiently substantial for the protection of its young. The tailor-birds sew together leaves wherewith to make their nests, using for the purpose cotton and thread where they can find it, and natural vegetable fibres where they cannot obtain artificial.

Colonel Sykes says that he has found the threads thus used for sewing knotted at the ends.[167]

Forbes saw the tailor-bird of the East Indies constructing its nest, and observed it to choose a plant with large leaves, gather cotton which it regularly spun into a thread by means of its bill and claws, and then sew the leaves together, using its beak as a needle, or rather awl.

This instinct is rendered particularly interesting to evolutionists from the fact that it is exhibited by three distinct genera. For, as the instinct is so peculiar and unique, it is not likely to have originated independently in the three genera, but must be regarded as almost certainly derived from a common ancestral type--thus showing that an instinct may be perpetuated unaltered after the differentiation of structure has proceeded beyond a specific distinction. The genus _Sylvia_ inhabits Italy, the other two inhabit India. _Sylvia_ uses for thread spiders' web collected from the egg-pouches, which is st.i.tched through holes made in the edges of leaves, presumably with the beak.

The baya bird of India 'hangs its pendulous dwelling from a projecting bough, twisting it with gra.s.s into a form somewhat resembling a bottle with a prolonged neck, the entrance being inverted, so as to baffle the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles.'

Sir E. Tennent, from whom this account is taken, adds:--

The natives a.s.sert that the male bird carries fire-flies to the nest, and fastens them to its sides by particles of soft mud. Mr. Layard a.s.sures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire-fly, the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the perch.

Dr. Buchanan confirms the report of the natives here alluded to, and says:--