THE NATURALIST

Otago Witness, Issue 1906, 21 August 1890, Page 41

THE NATURALIST

By F. A. J.

KEASON IN THE SEAGULL.

The common seagull which frequents our coasts, and occasionally goes far inland, is a bird possessing a considerable degree of intelligence. In some particulars it displays mental faculties nearly akin to what we call by the name of reason in man. Who that has noticed a pair of these birds sitting patiently on some commanding eminence watching a sick sheep, or a ewe in the act of parturition, till the moment arrives when they can with impunity attack their defenceless victim, but must have been struck with the display of deliberative reasoning power involved ? A friend relates to me another instance of reason in the seagull equally remarkable. He and his bi other were engaged on a ploughing oontraot, and wore constantly followed by flocks of these gulls, which were continually rising immediately in front of the horses to settle down again just behind the ploughmen, to feast on the worms turned up by the plough. In a spirit of mischief one of the young men attached a noose to a small tussock, which he placed in the plough furrow close behind him, and one of the eager gulls was caught by the leg and flew off with difficulty, all the rest near rising in the air at the same time and screaming. Although he tried to repeat the trick no seagull would walk over a tussock in the furrow, which they left, and walked round wide of the suspected trap. Here not only the victim of the trick but all the other birds that witnessed it instantly reasoned out cause and offect. On one occasion — the only instance of the kind that ever came within my notice — I saw an illustration of something akin to frclic in a pair of these birds. As I was proceeding up the Taieri river in a boat I saw a white crane sitting on the branch of a tree overhanging the water, with its long neck erect after the manner of the genus when on the watch. A pair of marauding seagulls, which had been wheeling and screaming overhead, suddenly espied the j crane, when one gull made directly for the inoffensive binl and attempted to strike it on the head ; but when the gull came within a foot almost of its head the crane cleverly ducked down, and the disappointed seagull passed on with a strong rush of wing. I involuntarily laughed at the denouement, which both surprised and amused me. Several times the attempt wus repeated, only to he as cunningly frustrated, and the phir of gulls left the crane to direct their attention to a hawk, which, after several displays of hostility, took refuse in flight, and disappeared over the nearest hill.