316 
ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE. 
her bill. Next day he set them thickly round the nest ; 
but now the bird, instead of running as usual to the nest 
along the ground, alighted directly upon it. This shows 
a considerable appreciation of mechanical appliances, as 
does also the following. 
Mrs. Gf. M. E, Campbell writes to me : — - 
At Ardglass, co. Down, Ireland, is a long tract of turf 
coming to the edge of the rocks overhanging the sea, where 
cattle and geese feed ; at a barn on this tract there was a low 
enclosure, with a door fastening by a hook and staple to the side- 
post : when the hook was out of the staple, the door fell open by 
its own weight. 1 one day saw a goose with a large troop of 
goslings coming off the turf to this door, which was secured by 
the hook being in the staple. The goose waited for a minute 
or two, as if for the door to be opened, and then turned round 
as if to go away, but what she did was to make a rush at the 
door, and making a dart with her beak at the point of the hook 
nearly threw it out of the staple ; she repeated this manoeuvre, 
and succeeded at the third attempt, the door fell open, and the 
goose led her troop in with a sound of triumphant chuckling. 
How had the goose learned that the force of the rush was need- 
ful to give the hook a sufficient toss ? 
Mrs. K. Addison sends me the following instance of 
the use of signs on the part of an intelligent jackdaw. 
The bird was eighteen months old, and lived in some 
bushes in Mrs. Addison’s garden. She writes : — 
I generally made a practice of filling a large basin which 
stands under the trees every morning for J ack’s bath. A few days 
ago I forgot this duty, and was reminded of the fact in a very 
singular manner. Another of my daily occupations is to open my 
dressing-room shutters about eleven o’clock of a morning. Now 
these said shuuters open almost on to the trees where Jack lives. 
The day I forgot his bath, when I opened the shutters I found 
my little friend waiting just outside them, as though he knew 
that he should see me there ; and when he did he placed himself 
immediately in front of me, and then shook himself and spread 
out his wings just as he always does in his bath. The action 
was so suggestive and so unmistakable, that I spoke just as 1 
would have done to a child — ‘ Oh yes, Jack, of course you shall 
have some water.’ 
Mr, W. W. Nichols writes to 4 Nature s 
