AN INTERESTING TEST.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue XVI, 19 October 1895, Page 482

AN INTERESTING TEST.

The question had come up amongst the passengers ol the steamship as to whether the gulls which appeared around the ship each morning were the same birds as had been with the ship on the day previous. To test the matter a line and fish hook were procured, and with a bait of salt pork the fishing for a sea gull was commenced. The first cast of the line was successful, a big gray bird swooping down on the bait. He was hauled abroad and found to be uninjured, the hook having caught in one of the glands of the beak, from which it was readily loosened. After detaching the hook a strip of red flannel was brought and carefully tied around the gull’s left leg by one of the seamen, the bird being then turned loose. It soon disappeared in the direction of the coast line, and it was generally allowed that each day brought a new contingent of gulls to follow the steamer and pick up the waste scraps from the table ; but on coming on deck after breakfast the next morning there was the flannel-bedecked gull to be seen, the most clamorous of all the birds. To test the gull’s reasoning power, if it had any, the same line and bait were drifted astern, the gull caught the day before being one of the first to strike for it.