From the declaiation by Jenny the 

 native housemaid we may turn, 

 appropriately enough, to a revealing 

 statement regarding the Buz/aid's 

 activities mailc by Lord Casey, 

 former Governor ( ieneial. In his 

 honk of \')hb, Australian Falhcr ami 

 St hi. Lord Casey comments on what 

 he terms "a bird's surprising ability 

 to use a tool". ;is reported by his 

 tathci fiom Murray Downs station. 

 N S W . m the early I SSOs. Al thai 

 lime it was frequently found thai I he 

 eggs of Ostriches, bred on the pro- 

 peris for the leather tnide, were 

 broken in ne-.ts, and ultimately the 

 trouble was traced to a large liav. k 

 iiniioiibicdlv the Buzzard. 



Here again is evidence of the 

 Buzzards extraordinary enterprise: 

 for. clearly, it was not misled hv the 

 fact that wheieas |h« ej-us of the 

 1 run arc green, those of the Ostrich 

 arc whitish. The determining factm, 

 no doubl. was shape 



E mj-Muaxhlng by Vulture* 



The observations on eg^-breaking 

 by the rpvptian Vulture (Neophron 

 pfrcnopwrns) , as published hy the 

 lawick Goodalls in Slururr. were 

 made in I anzanm. Ihev indicated 

 tJiat each bird picked up a stone in 

 its beak, and. while standing near 

 an Ostrich nest, projected the missile 

 at an egg Sometimes the target was 

 missed; but the pattern was repeated 

 until the egg Was broken 



l ater, the same writers discussed 

 the subject in finely-illustrated niiel. , 

 in the Nurional Geographic Mwa- 

 Hue (U.S.A., 1968) and AninntU 

 (England. 1969), and in each instance 

 they gave the results of enlightcnine 

 experiments, including the fact that 

 the Vultures were not misled v. hen 

 the Ostrich eggs were painted red 

 As with our Buzzards of the '■990$ 



(which tin ned from giccn to svlm, 

 cgtfs). shape was the governing , n 

 llucnce. 



lltcre had been an impression thai 

 these egg-smashing forays hy Vq|. 

 Hues were restricted to Tanzania, 

 bm upoits in kind have since come 

 FrOW both South Africa and Ethiopia, 

 attd, m the southern case. Dr. J. Wl 

 l.awick has advised me that a CQtTtt. 

 pondenl has reported stonc-droppin { 

 (tout aloft on the part of Vultures. 

 Obviously, egg-smiishing predators 

 aie distinctly adaptable. 



The record of egg-hreaking by 

 I espti.m Vultures in Ethiopia has 

 come from two experienced ami 

 ihologists who weie studying a hirtrt 

 CqfotPj ol (.neat White Pelicans en 

 an island in I ake Simla. They report 

 in the fob (1969) that each Vulture 

 would pick up a Pelican's egg and 

 hurl it smartly down on to a rock 

 Thus, probably because of the rela- 

 tive smallncss of Ihc egg, lhe\ 

 reversed the pTOCWS adopted towards 

 Ostrich eggs; and this, the recorders 

 Miggcsl. would siem to represent 



quits n different level of mental 



aeliviiy '. Four to six Vultures oper- 

 ated at I ake Shala and they broke 

 ten tri twelve eggs a day, probablv 

 totalling 400 to 500 eggs in a season 

 IVikifs il should be added here 

 that the In caking ol Ostrich cues k 

 ptedators in Africa seems to have 

 been known long ago. No basic 

 record t) available but a New South 

 Wales naturalist. A. G. Hamilton, 

 refeited to the maitcr in his book 

 Hush RrfftMu (Sydney. 1937). After 

 mentioning that luwks in Australic 

 h.i.l been known to dlop stones on 

 the eggs of Emus. Hamilton addcu. 

 •The same story is told of p African 

 eagle and ostrich eggs". It would be 

 interesting to learn where fits "same 

 story" ortginated. 



182 



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