316 ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 



her bill. Next day lie set them thickly round the nest ; 

 but now the bird, instead of running as usual to the nest 

 along the ground, alighted directly upon it. This shows 

 a considerable appreciation of mechanical appliances, as 

 does also the following. 



Mrs. G. M. E. Campbell writes to me : — 



At Ardglass, co. Down, Ireland, is a long tract of turf 

 coming to the edge of the rocks overhanging the sea, where 

 cattle and geese feed ; at a barn on this tract there was a low 

 enclosure, with a door fastening by a hook and staple to the side- 

 post : when the hook was out of the staple, the door fell open by 

 its own weight. 1 one day saw a goose with a large troop of 

 goslings coming off the turf to this door, which was secured by 

 the hook being in the staple. The goose waited for a minute 

 or two, as if for the door to be opened, and then turned round 

 as if to go away, but what she did was to make a rush at the 

 door, and making a dart with her beak at the point of the hook 

 nearly threw it out of the staple ; she repeated this manoeuvre, 

 and succeeded at the third attempt, the door fell open, and the 

 goose led her troop in with a sound of triumphant chuckling. 

 How had the goose learned that the force of the rush was need- 

 ful to give the hook a sufficient toss 1 



Mrs. K. Addison sends me the following instance of 

 the use of signs on the part of an intelligent jackdaw. 

 The bird was eighteen months old, and lived in some 

 bushes in Mrs. Addison's garden. She writes : — 



I generally made a practice of filling a large basin which 

 stands under the trees every morning for Jack's bath. A few days 

 ago I forgot this duty, and was reminded of the fact in a very 

 singular manner. Another of my daily occupations is to open my 

 dressing-room shutters about eleven o'clock of a morning. Now 

 these said shunters open almost on to the trees where Jack lives. 

 The day I forgot his bath, when I opened the shutters I found 

 my Httle friend waiting just outside them, as though he knew 

 that he should see me there ; and when he did he placed himself 

 immediately in front of me, and then shook himself and spread 

 out his wings just as he always does in his bath. The action 

 was so suggestive and so unmistakable, that I spoke just as I 

 would have done to a child — ' Oh yes, Jack, of course you shall 

 have some water.' 



Mr. W. W. Nichols writes to * Nature : ' — 



