Accommodating Diners

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 19 June 1914, Page 2

Accommodating Diners

It is a great thing to be able to substitute one sort of food for another cheerfully, as the lady did who, when ordered the too-costly diet of oysters and chnmpagne, took cockles and ginger beer.

Some animals excel in this kind of adaptability, and they \ often score tremendously over those birds and beasts which insist upon one particular sort of food, and prove their strength of character by dying if they cannot obtain it.

Extraordinary instances have from time to time occurred in which starving animals have eaten things which could not possibly have done them any lasting good. Horses have tried to soothe their pan.gs of hunger by eating paper, and they have even dined off their neighbour's mane and tail. Do.gs have swallowed

wood. Such painful instances as these merely prove how hard the starving will fight for life. It is worth noticing how widely animals differ in this respect. While one kind will eat almost anything in its determination to "keep going," another will "turn its face to "the wall" and perish rather than take a mouthful of food it does not fancy.

Less painful and far more interesting are the cases in which wild creatures have entirely of their own accord taught themselves to take unusual food simply because the supply has proved tempting. Look at the rooks. They belong to the crow family ; in fact, "you" probably call them crows when you see them. As crows they should eat "meaty" fare, i.e., carrion, and all sorts of worms and grubs. So they do, but when they find that a farmer has scattered wheat all over a bare field, the thought strikes them that it is really a pity to miss so fine an opportunity for an easily acquired meal. So certain were naturalists at one time that this could not be so, and that no self-respecting rook would eat hard corn, that they laughed at, or were angry with, the farmers who made such a fuss about the rooks visiting recently sown fields. They declared that the stupid farmer did not know his best friends —of course, the rooks were merely eating grubs. Then there came along a naturalist who liked hard facts better than mere theories, and he examined the crops of a huge number of rooks, looked in their pockets, so to speak, and that, of course, settled the matter up to a point. Only up to a point though, for those who love rooks and are not farmers will always say that the birds do more good than harm ; that the labourer, in fact, is worthy of his wage, while the up-to-date farmer will reply that he prefers to use a chemical insect destroyer, when necessary, to a labourer who demands too high a wage. A number of other birds and sundry mammals, not to mention insects, have acted as the rooks have, though perhaps scarcely as openly. It is seldom safe to say just what birds and beasts will eat, or rather will not eat. There are some which never change their fare, as, for instance, swallows ; but there are far more varieties which are frequently changing, or which, at any rate, like a varied diet.