NATURAL INSTINCT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 6 April 1926, Page 6

NATURAL INSTINCT

RIRDS Willi II TFI.L TilF. TTMF

There is a story of a dog who knew svlmii it was Sunday. Incarcerated svhile the family went, to church, he formed a Stinda v-morning habit of avoiding capture, so thai be eotlld seeI'etlv run ahead to church, where he would Iry lo ensconce himself In Hie family pew. Some birds appear lo know' the time of day. and the day of tiie week. Anyone who feeds birds in gardens a! a regular lime knows how punctually they assemble, and how Ihe garden robin will lap at the breakfast room window if breakfast i-, kite. Fd ■sard desse. the naturalist, tells a story of magpies which knew when Sunday arrived. As a boy he would shoot the magpies which gathered in his home garden. Only on Sundays svould Ihev iiop fearlessly about the' lawn, us \i knowing there svas a truce and that a gun. would not' In l fired. Gamekeepers have observed that on Sundays rooks fearlessly haunt places which they shun on week days for fear of gun-fire. Hence ihe old Kentish saying, "As happy as a rook on a. Sunday." A circumstantial story, also related by desse, is ui a timekeeping gull. Someone threw the bird a piece of bread from a window ;;i Haylyn, Cornwall. The tic.vl day. at I lie same hour, the gull appeared at the window, and was fed, and from that time, for a period of eighteen years, he arrived for his breakfast every morning at tiie same hour exrent when called from home for pilchard-fishing.-