236 MENTAL FACULTIES sec. 



that all the sparrows caught were young birds, hatched the 

 same spring, and therefore of little experience. Not a single 

 old sparrow had entered the trap. And when I set it for the 

 third time, not one sparrow went into it — it stood for week 

 after week ; the yard was full of sparrows, but I caught no 

 more. 



However, I looked forward confidently to the next year — 

 then, I thought, young sparrows will get caught again ; and 

 about two dozen would have been enough material for my 

 purpose. But I had reckoned without the — intelligence of the 

 sparrows. When I got out the trap again next year, and had 

 it set, not a sparrow went into it. But a curious spectacle was 

 observed : apparently several sparrows had the desire and the 

 intention to go into the trap, and these were obviously the 

 young inexperienced birds which had been hatched since the 

 trap was last set ; but others, of course the older birds who 

 had learnt the danger of the wire-basket from the loss of their 

 families, kept them back by constant earnest warnings, for 

 the males, as soon as one of the yellow beaks approached the 

 cage, uttered their warning cry most loudly, the cry wdiich 

 they always make when danger is present, and which consists 

 in a lonfT shrill rattlin^ " r-r-r-r-r." 



But the most singular fact is this : It is now nine years 

 since I set the trap for the first time. Since then I have 

 repeated the attempt almost every year, and each time with 

 the same result — not one sparrow more has ever entered the 

 trap, not even last winter, when, in consequence of the deep 

 long-lying snow, the birds were in great want. The know- 

 ledge or the tradition of the danger attached to the wire- 

 basket has been maintained, even although I once omitted to 

 set it for two years. 



Every lover of living nature, and particularly every sports- 

 man, knows the cunning of crows. They allow the harmless 

 pedestrian to approach quite near to them, but from the 



