REASON IN BIRDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 7, 10 November 1883, Page 4

REASON IN BIRDS.

'• Noticing the ether day," writes a correipendent, " a considerable quantity o£ broken snail shells, quite a double handful, lying Scattered about along one side of one of the gravel paths of my flower garden, I was surprised, and quite at a loss how to account for their presence there. On looking into the Blatter further, I found that a blackbird bad brought the molluscous animals to the spot and hammered and smashed the shells on the edging stones of the path, thus enabling the epicure to extract and devour the dainty contents. A patch on one of the stones was quite greasy-looking with the repeated operation of cracking and demolishing shells upon it. As the bird discovered the snails among ferns, vegetables, etc, close at hand, and not being able to break the shells on the soft grass or earth, it had brought them to and made a breaking-block of the stones in question, leaving the broken shells behind. The shells were of the various colors and sites usually seen, from the yellow tinted to those of the large house snail. This little incident appears to show pretty plainly that the lower animals of life are not entirely without the possession of reason, though but limited and slight that power in them may be,"