The Mentality of Wild Birds and Beasties 



It harmonized with the tree-trunk on account of the fact 

 that it was covered with bits of lichen plucked there- 

 from, but alas ! the stupid bird had decorated it here 

 and there with bits of white paper and cigar bands. 

 It was the patches of white that first attracted my com- 

 panion's attention, as I suspect they speedily afterwards 

 did that of some schoolboy, to the bird's ultimate un- 

 doing. 



All mentality seems to be made up of alternating 

 streaks of cleverness and stupidity. It is seldom found 

 of complete uniformity in man or beast. Wrynecks 

 have bred for some years in a nesting-box hanging 

 against the trunk of a large ash. tree in my orchard. 

 One day whilst studying the birds from a hiding-tent 

 close at hand I observed the female arrive with a 

 wonderful collection of ants' eggs in her bill. In the 

 act of entering the hole in the nesting-box one of these 

 slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. A 

 mental note of this little accident had no doubt been 

 made by the bird, for when she emerged again, instead 

 of flying away in search of more food, she descended 

 straight to the ground, diligently sought for the lost 

 ant's egg, and upon recovering it promptly flew back to 

 her chicks with it. I thought this was a very clever 

 piece of mentality on the part of the wryneck, for she 

 not only remembered what she had lost, but where she 

 had lost it, all through the exciting period of distribut- 

 ing a large collection of food to her clamorous 

 young ones, so I tried a little experiment upon her. 

 The nesting-box was taken down and suspended in a 



75 



