34 Palmer, Instinctive Stillness in Birds. [jan 



warning and the young are always being subdued. In this early 

 training we can see the germ of individual mimicry, the necessity 

 of keeping still, motion in the young being only permitted as the 

 parents will. With ground birds the instinctive habit of stillness 

 is stronger and more individual in the young. But with the func- 

 tional development of the wing growth the tendency to stillness is 

 gradually lost in many species for they can soon escape by active 

 exertions. 



Much could be written about the power of the eyes. Sometimes 

 a bird can be easier approached by not looking at it. They seem 

 to know instinctively that they are seen when one looks at them 

 directly, but if they are under the impression that they are unseen 

 one often has a better chance to get near them or to have them 

 approach. As a boy I fooled my first crow, after an experience of 

 repeated failures in attempting to shoot one, by walking by it, gun 

 under my arm and looking everywhere but at the bird, and many 

 instances of the kind might be given. 



A protectively colored adult bird endeavors to escape imminent 

 danger from an approaching predatory animal by assuming a 

 quiet and crouching position while it is also watchful. The bird 

 always has it in its power to escape suddenly, a common habit, 

 provided it judges the danger point correctly; but a young wader, 

 for example, has no such chance; it keeps motionless while in 

 danger because that is an inherited characteristic and a result of 

 the long experience of its kind under such circumstances. Its only 

 method and instinctive hope of escape is by keeping still, together 

 with its color resemblance to the surrounding ground, as any 

 movement may be fatal, its enemy being always on the alert. But 

 in rare cases its stillness may be fatal, as is evidenced in the following 

 instance given me by Mr. S. M. Gronberger. With two friends he 

 had landed on a rocky islet in Lake Roxen in Sweden which was 

 inhabited almost solely by the Common Tern (Sterna hirundo) 

 and the Common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucos) . Attracted by the 

 numerous adult birds they wandered over the islet and it was only 

 the slippery condition of their shoe soles that showed them that 

 they had unwittingly been crushing many eggs and young birds 

 which up to that time they had not noticed. 



A moving predatory bird or mammal has a very slight chance of 



