Northern Observations of Inland Birds i8i 



bearing upon it. Mischievousness is an entirely useless 

 characteristic, almost peculiar to man himself. The wild 

 creature that springs and soils a trap obtains from that 

 act something which may prove of direct advantage to 

 his race ; he does not do it prompted by a useless, indeed 

 harmful, desire to annoy. 



Some years ago I was once much mystified by the 

 behaviour of a spaniel a few hours before the birth of her 

 puppies. She kept scratching vigorously at the floor of her 

 kennel, and seemed restless and ill at ease. At length I 

 Hberated her, at which she at once produced a large bone 

 from her bed and promptly buried it close to her kennel. 

 This struck me as a remarkable example of the storage 

 habit — or rather of inherited habit in the case of an animal 

 in the conditions of whose life the storing of food no 

 longer played a useful part — the instinctive laying aside 

 of a store against a time of possible sickness and scarcity. 

 And the scratching of the board floor was at least as 

 obscure in the way of evidence as was the act of the 

 captive raven who hid the treasured articles under the 

 floor of his cage. 



The intelHgence of the crow family is further indicated 

 by their adaptability. Some birds depend upon fishing, 

 some upon scavenging, some upon hunting, and some 

 upon the vegetable produce of the land. But the crows, 

 so far as I know, are the only ones that can ** turn their 

 hands to any one of these trades,'' and which regularly 

 do so, rivalling the skilled specialist in whatever Hne they 

 take up. The case of the raven feeding upon mussels is 

 an adequate illustration. Possibly this individual raven 

 had been educated by the sea, as distinct from the raven 

 thousands which scavenge the prairies. In our own 

 country every raven has the coast at its bidding, and one 

 which I shot in Norfolk twelve or thirteen miles inland 

 had an undigested starfish almost the size of my hand, 



