At Home with Wild Nature 



where their food was to be discovered. Although these 

 two birds a male and female had apparently learnt 

 the properties of glass from the outside, it cost them a 

 goodly number of giddying head bumps before they 

 discovered its obstructive powers from the inside. 

 However, their mentality thoroughly mastered its 

 barring qualities, and they eventually gave up attempt- 

 ing to fly through a closed window, even when they were 

 badly scared. 



Domestic animals are supposed, through their long 

 association with man, to be more intelligent than their 

 wild congeners, but some of this credit is no doubt due 

 to the fact that the latter are not subject to the same 

 easy and intimate observation as the former. 



Some years ago I owned an exceedingly intelligent, 

 but at the same time wickedly mischievous, cat. In 

 order to prevent her from catching birds I tied two 

 ferret bells to her neck in such a way that they would 

 drag along the ground and give a warning tinkle when- 

 ever she attempted to stalk one of my feathered friends. 

 Pussy very soon discovered that the instinctive method 

 of approaching her quarry inevitably meant failure 

 owing to the presence of the hateful bells, and out of her 

 mentality evolved a new method of approach. She 

 advanced with her head raised and neck outstretched in 

 such a manner that the tell-tale pieces of metal touched 

 nothing and were in consequence silent. Of course, she 

 laboured under the disadvantage of being more easily 

 seen, but with this cunningly acquired silence and the 

 friendly shelter of an intervening plant she sometimes 



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