1 68 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



practised in England to-day by people whol wish to 

 catch kestrels. The bird fastened to the ground 

 instantly grips the other with its claws, partly to 

 defend itself, and partly, perhaps, to obtain a pur- 

 chase by which it may raise itself from the ground 

 to which it adheres in some way quite incomprehen- 

 sible to its experience. Parrots are taken in this way 

 in Australia, and there is very little doubt that if a 

 tame eagle were used as a decoy and "pegged out" 

 without hurting it, on its back on the eagle-haunted 

 hills of Spain, others would be caught in the same 

 way. A couple of these birds which found their way 

 to the Zoo were actually taken when locked in this 

 curious embrace after a fight upon the ground. 



The progress from the use of these unconscious 

 instruments, to the training of animals to become 

 intelligent assistants in decoying others into the power 

 of man, makes an advance of very many steps up the 

 intellectual ladder of animal intelligence. Yet it is 

 not invariably the creatures credited with higher brain- 

 power than others which are so used. On the cattle 

 ranches of the great West, one of the great difficulties 

 of the cowboys is to induce the animals to enter a 

 train quietly. They can be rounded up and driven to 

 the siding by the ordinary manoeuvres of the profession, 

 but to induce a mob of obstinate bullocks and cows to 

 entrain themselves quietly is so difficult that it is not 

 yet understood even in Ireland ; and the question has 

 caused a good deal of correspondence in the papers 

 devoted to the great live-stock industry of the island. 

 In Texas they manage this by the use of a trained 



