PHEASANTS & ’QUAKES

New Zealand Times, Volume L, Issue 11685, 24 November 1923, Page 9

PHEASANTS & ’QUAKES

REGARDED AS HERALDS. WHY NOT IN NEW ZEALAND? The remarkable sensitiveness of certain birds, especially pheasants, to vibrations in tne air, was largely commented upon during tho war. During the Zeppelin raids in Norfolk, the birds became restless in covers widely apart, and crowed loudly long 'before the sounds of the bomb explosions became audible to men. It was stated that in the aotion of January 24th, 1915, when the German cruiser Bluoher was sunk off the Dogger Bank, the sound barely reached the Lincolnshire coast, yet the pheasants heard it right across the country 50 or more miles away, and proclaimed by their incessant crowing that; they were aware of some unusual disturbance. In Japan the sensitiveness of the pheasant in regard to tremors of the earth has long been carefully noted, and the birds there are regarded as earthquake heralds. Profes3or Omori, in recent experiments, recorded many occasions when the pheasants suddenly became unusually noisy and restless. He, himself, experienced no traoe of shock, but on an examination of the seismograph records at the time, he found slight earthquake vibrations had been abroad It is stated that pheasants are of considerable service as heralds of coming disaster, for a very brief warning to inmates of houses in earthquake countries enables them 1o escape to a place of safety. There arc pheasants in New Zealand also and it would ibe interesting to learn if similar experiences have been recorded in regard to them.