I 72 DOMESTICATED ANIMALS 



simultaneous din when anything occurs to arouse their enmity 

 is commemorated in the ancient myth concerning the aid 

 which they gave in the defence of the walls of Rome. There 

 are anecdotes apparently well attested where water fowl have 

 borne away a wounded comrade which had fallen before the 

 huntsman's fowling-piece. In Smiles's " Life of Edwards" 

 there is an often-quoted story which appears to be trust- 

 worthy and sufficiently illustrates this point. A hunter, 

 having shot one of a flock of terns, which fell wounded into 

 the water near the shore, waded in to seize it. Suddenly 

 two of the terns came to their wounded companion, seized 

 him by either wing, and bore him toward the open sea. 

 When these two helpers were weary, the sufferer was 

 lowered into the water, and, in turn, seized by two other birds 

 which were fresh for the labor. Working in succession, these 

 birds carried their companion to a rock some distance from 

 the shore. When the hunter endeavored to approach the 

 rock, yet others of the species seized the cripple and bore 

 him far beyond reach. 



Although too much value must not be given to the numer- 

 ous anecdotes concerning the sagacity of water fowl, the great 

 mass of these stories, as compared with the poverty of the 

 anecdotes concerning the better-known barnyard creatures, 

 seems to establish the fact that their intelligence is much 

 greater than that of the land birds. This superiority can 

 probably be attributed to the fact that their life requires much 

 more definite adaptation of means to ends than in the simpler 

 conditions which are met by the forms which dwell in the 

 fields. The circumstances of their life are something like 

 those of the seals among mammals. They have to do with 

 the conditions of the air, the land, and the water ; and as they 



