One day, however, the chauffeur "brought with him to the feast a very tall step- 

 ladder, which he placed close to the feeding table. The female mallard — the 

 real head of the family -- inspected the strange contraption, suddenly turned 

 tail, gave a succession of quacks, called to her companion and waddled off, 

 down the lawn, into the water and sailed away, leaving the corn untouched. The 

 chauffeur at once removed the ladder, hut the ducks refused to come at his call 

 and it was many days before he was able to bring them to his feet, call he ever 

 so duck- like, or spread he an abundance of fodder. A trivial matter, you will 

 properly say, but what reasoning by the ducks - or what instinct (if you prefer 

 that word) - influenced them to take flight in apparent aTarm? Possibly - for 

 we can only speculate as to what boils and bubbles in the anatid brain - the 

 two ducks had passed sentence on their one-time friend as a convicted traitor, 

 who had tried to "double-cross 11 them by erecting some sort of blind, behimd 

 which lurked an engine of death or danger of some kind, to them unknown. 



Not for the purpose of bringing forward an argument in favor of the theory 

 that birds and other animals reason and act, often as the result of a reasoned 

 conclusion, but just to mention a rather amusing incident in the life of one 

 of the most intelligent of birds - the Sulphur-crested Cockatoo- I wish to 

 draw your attention to the fact that birds sometimes suffer quite as much as we 

 do from several kinds of mosquitos. These irritating and occasionally dangerous 

 little pests bite them on various parts of their exposed bodies, but particularly 

 on and about the eyes, and unless the sufferer is able to twist his neck suffi- 

 ciently to buyy his head beneath the protecting feathers of the back, sleep may 

 be out of the question. We were explaining to an intelligent lover of birds 

 that in mosquito-ridden localities we always cover the cage of our John Illrd 

 with netting to defend him from attacks of the culex. "Oh, but my cockatoo 

 has even a better plan than that; whenever the mosquitos bother him, and es- 

 pecially at night, he takes his large, tin drinking cup, empties out the water 

 and puts it like a cap over his head'. It fits quite snugly but does not inter- 

 fere with his breathing. If we put him under a mosquito net he still goes to 

 sleep with the cup over his head, but we hope to teach him that it is not then 

 necessary." We would have doubted such a tale if told by some persons we have 

 met, but we have every reason to believe this observer. 



Many writers tell us all about the Polynesian Hermit Crab, and some of them 

 speak as if he were peculiar to Oceania, As is well know, this comic and at- 

 tractive animal is widely distributed over the earth's surface under the forbid- 

 ding family names of Pagurida e ana Parapae;urid ae ; indeed, more than one (small) 

 species is rather common along the Atlantic Coast. 



The following is what one of our most reliable authors tells us about this 

 creature :- 



The hermit crab is the best bait for fishing in the waters of the South Sea 

 islands. There must be several varieties. I have counted three already: the 

 ordinary, small brown one called kakara , the huge red one found in deep water,' 

 and the black, hairy kind, whose pounded-up body is mixed with grated coconut 

 to extract the oil. This latter is called unga : in the old days the lowest class 

 at PAROTONGA society was known by the same name meaning, i.e. /that all their 

 property could be carried on their backs. The common variety is a good deal 



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