Sparrow's Power of Reasoning.

Bruce Herald, Volume XI, Issue 1016, 7 June 1878, Page 7

Sparrow's Power of Reasoning.

(From the * Hartford Times.') " A curiouß story, illustrative ofthe intelligence and reasoning power, and per-: haps of the characteristic rascality also, of, the little mia-'called " English' sparrows," ' so common in all our 'principal towns and cities,, is revealed, Jby- a „ friend, who had it from the witness .himself who saw the occurrence. Tbe gentleman, who resides in New Tork, had erected, last spring in His back yard, a large box for sparrow's ,v , It ;,- wm divided into three rows, each containing four" compartments. -'These' I'were'L t all., n speedily taken possession of by* a dozen pairs a ofsparrows, and 'the business ol making nests proceeded amongst tbe customary chirruping of these fussy and pugnacious feathered colonists. Sitting idly at the window one Sunday, watching the birds/ the gentleman saw one cock-sparrow come , flying to his place with a fine, soft, white" , feather in his bill. The box was so placed that he conld see into the apartments, and he saw this bird fix the feather into an incomplete nest, and fly away. No sooner was he out of sight than a female sparrow from an adjoining apartment who had evidently seen that proceeding, hopped into her neigbbores house, . and pulled out and carried off the coveted feather. Becoming interested, the observer watched the performance, expecting to see the little thief carry her stolen prize to her own nest ; but here is where she displayed an undeniable reasoning process, and acted on a clear conception of cause and effect, making a prudent use of her knowledge and of the character and disposition of her plundered neighbor. She flew off with the feather to a neighboring tree, where she securely fastened it in an inconepicuous place between, two twigs, and there left it. Pretty soon the bird she had defranded came back with a straw to add to hia nest.

j Discovering his loss, he came out with an I Angry chirruping that boded no good to the despoiler of his hearth and home, if he could only find the rogue. His first demonstration wae*to visit his next-door neighbor, without any search-warrant. In. {hat abode of peace and innocence he found no trace of the stolen feather, and as for the actual guilty party, she was hopping innocently about, and loudly- demanding — as far as bird's tones could be understood by the man at' the windows—what -was meant by this ungentlemanly and very impolite intrusion into . a lady's , bed-chamber, and insisting that she was no such kind of women. The cock-sparrow was evidently (puzzled. Unable, after a minute search, to find the lost feather, he at length apparently gave it up, charged, to profit and loss, and flew away in search of another. The thief demurely waited till he had got well off, and then flew to ' the tree, secured the solen feather; and took it in triumph to her own nest.