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The hearing of pheasants and other birds.



THE HEARING OF PHEASANTS AND

OTHER BIRDS.


By C. Barnby Smith.


One Sunday early in March, about 11.35 p.m., I was walking

in a garden in the cool of the evening (testified by a north wind

and occasional flakes of snow) accompanied by my wife and other

friends. No sound of a train or anything else could be heard,

although we were listening intently for a long time. Suddenly a dull

thud was heard coming from many miles distant, when at once the

wild pheasants in the adjacent woods woke and chattered violently

for a quarter of a minute. As soon as they had ceased there came

another thud, and immediately more chattering ; and so eight times

over, when all was still again.


More than half-an-hour later the pheasants chattering was

repeated six times over in precisely the same way, although no

distant thud was then heard by the intently listening humans.


So much is common place ; but what may be thought of

interest is that in the same garden were various other kinds of

pheasants—Golden, Amherst, Silver, Tragopan and Monaul — in

addition to other birds such as oyster catcher, curlew, spur-wing

plover and demoiselle cranes. All these were of course in captivity,

but although they give expression to their feelings in varied ways of

vociferation in ordinary life, on this occasion they did not utter a

sound, nor did any wild bird in the vicinity except the pheasants.


Curlew, oyster catcher, spur-wing plover and cranes are very

wakeful birds and constantly heard at night, and I think no one

could argue but that they have intense powers of both hearing and

sight. Tragopan and monaul pheasants I have found to make loud

cries only when suspecting hidden enemies close at hand. The

rustle of a blackbird in a bush will send them into a great panic.

Demoiselle cranes, as I have often noticed, are most sensitive to a

distant echo of their own call. Golden and Amherst pheasants

appear to have very quick hearing, and unless tamed when young

are very nervous. I suppose the explanation of the silence of all

bird. - 5 , oJier than wild pheasants is that birds only take notice of

what interests them, and wild pheasants fear being shot; more-



