For You to Know A Column of General Knowledge

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 255, 24 July 1937, Page 9 (Supplement)

For You to Know A Column of General Knowledge

Mimicry in Birds. T)ID you know that there are more than 30 kinds of birds in Australia which use vocal mimicry? Some of the small kinds, which are little known, are very clever indeed; but the king of them all is the lyrebird, which not only has vocal beauty but a voice of remarkable strength. Lyrebirds are very clever at imitating the calls of other birds, as is shown by the fact (that when a wild lyrebird (a mother tending its chick) heard the' “curra-wa, curra-wong” of a currawong flying overhead one day, she lifted up her head and mimicked the call perfectly. She may, of course, have practised the call beforehand, but on the other hand she may not. The .rufous scrubbird, a small, shy creature found in the Queensland jungle, is also a good mimicker. A naturalist was once watching one of these little birds when a grey fantail twittered from a bough overhead ; no sooner had the notes been uttered than the scrub-bird repeated them. This mimic may also have practised beforehand, but in any case the incident showed how accomplished even birds may become in the art of imitating. Dyeing Sheep. TN some parts of Syria the people dye x their sheep different colours, and then keep them for pets, always taking them for walks in the street in the afternoon.. Sometimes the sheep will be seen with red heads, green tails, and their bodies striped in two shades of blue—picturesque, but, from our point of view, queer! Strange Sands. A T the edge of the Kalahari Desert is an extremely dry patch of sand, almost white in colour, and which can be seen 80 miles away from an aeroplane 2000 feet up. They are so dry and hard that a dog running over them makes a sound like thunder. When anyone pushes a finger into them there is .a snoring sound, and as the finger is withdrawn the sound goes up an octave. Sand poured into a hole hums like an aeroplane, and an hourglass filled with this curious powdered quartz marks the passing of time with a muffled roar. Among the sands are curious hollow tubes almost like the branches or roots of trees. They are believed to be the work of lightning, the electricity fusing the sand .into a glass-like substance as it flashes into the earth. .. • A Queer Visitor. npiSHEVITZ, a village in, Northern Bulgaria, has an unusual visitor, a stork which was prevented by a damaged wing from migrating to warmer lands last autumn, and has been cared for ever since by the village schoolmaster. The master bandaged the broken wing and kept the stork in his stable, the bird and the master’s horse striking up a close friendship. The boys and girls of the village, anxious to make the stork at home, knitted him a pair of woollen trousers, a coat, and a woollen cap, and dressed in this strange attire he walked to school every day and went out shopping with the master. Now that spring has brought back the storks, the tame bird which once sported a woollen suit might have been expected to forsake his friends, but he has not done so yet.