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ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
splinters, or to disturb the arrangements of the annoying band- 
ages. He seemed really to understand the nature of the services 
rendered, and that they were for his good . 1 
Speaking of the Urubu vultures, Mr. Bates says : — - 
They assemble in great numbers in the villages about the 
end of the wet season, and are then ravenous with hunger. My 
cook could not leave the open kitchen at the back of the house 
for a moment whilst the dinner was cooking, on account of 
their thievish propensities. Some of them were always loitering 
about, watching their opportunity, and the instant the kitchen 
was left unguarded, the bold marauders marched in and lifted 
the lids of the saucepans with their beaks to rob them of their 
contents. The boys of the village lie in wait, and shoot them 
with bow and arrow ; and vultures have consequently acquired 
such a dread of these weapons, that they may be often kept off 
by hanging a bow from the rafters of the kitchen . 2 
Mrs. Lee, in her ‘ Anecdotes/ says that one day her gardener 
was struck by the strange conduct of a robin, which the man 
had often fed. The bird fluttered about him in so strange a 
manner — now coming close, then hurrying away, always in the 
same direction — that the gardener followed its retreating move- 
ments. The robin stopped near a flower-pot, and fluttered over 
it in great agitation. It was soon found that a nest had been 
firmed in the pot, and contained several young. Close by was 
a snake, intent, doubtless, upon making a meal of the brood. 
The following appeared in the c Gardener's Chronicle ’ 
for Ang. 3, 1878, under the initials ‘ T. G. ? I wrote to the 
editor requesting him to supply me with the name of his 
correspondent, and also to state whether he knew him to 
be a trustworthy man. In reply the editor said that he 
knew his correspondent to be trustworthy, and that his 
name is Thomas Geering : — 
About thirty years ago the small market town in which I 
reside was skirted by an open common, upon which a number 
of geese were kept by cottagers. The number of the birds was 
very great. . . . Our corn market at that time was held in the 
street in front of the principal inn, and on the market day a 
good deal of corn was scattered from sample bags by millers. 
Somehow the geese found out about the spilling of corn, and 
they appear to have held a consultation upon the subject. . . . 
1 Menanlt, Wonders of Instinct , p. 1 32. 
2 Nat. on Amazons p. 177; Anecdotes , p. 135. 
