OF WILD ANIMALS 189 



Keeper Atkin regards the wedge-tailed eagle, of Australia, 

 as the wisest species with which he has to deal. In the first 

 place, all four of the birds in that flock recognize the fact that 

 he is a good friend, not an enemy, and each day they receive him 

 in their midst with cheerful confidence and friendship. In the 

 fall when the time comes to catch them, crate them and wheel 

 them half a mile to their winter quarters in the Ostrich House, 

 they do not become frightened, nor fight against being handled, 

 and submit with commendable sense and appreciation. 



The one thing on which the wedge-tailed eagle really insists 

 when in his summer quarters, is his daily spray bath from a hose. 

 When his keeper goes in to give the daily morning wash to the 

 cage, the eagles perch close above his head and screech and 

 scream until the spray is turned upon them. Then they spread 

 their wings, to get it thoroughly, and come out thoroughly 

 soaked. When the spray is merely turned upon their log in- 

 stead of upon the birds as they sit higher up, they fly down and 

 get into the current wherever it may be. 



Memory of the Cereopsis Goose. Keeper Atkin also 

 showed me an instance of the wisdom of the cereopsis geese, 

 from Van Diemens Land, South Australia. During the winter 

 those birds are kept in the Wild-Fowl Pond; but in summer they 

 are quartered in a secluded yard of the Craned Paddock, nearly 

 half a mile away. Twice a year these birds go under their own 

 steam between those two enclosures. When turned out of the 

 Cranes' Paddock last November they at once set out and walked 

 very briskly southward up the Bird's Valley, past the Zebra 

 House. On reaching the Service Road, a quarter of a mile away, 

 they turned to the left and kept on to the Wolf Dens. There 

 they turned to the right and kept on two hundred yards until 

 they reached the walk coming down from the Reptile House. 

 There they turned to the left, crossed the bridge, stopped at 

 the gate to the Wild-Fowl Pond enclosure, and when the gate 

 was opened they entered and declared themselves "at home. ,, 



Mr. Atkin says that in spring these birds show just as much 

 interest in going back to their summer home. 



