Animals in Strange Conditions.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume IV, Issue 288, 27 November 1902, Page 1

Animals in Strange Conditions.

‘Longman’s Journal raises an inJfiresting point in natural history, Tn an enquiry into “ The Behaviour of Animals in Unfamil ii; Circumstances.” Human intellects at this date are very seldom confronted by

things absolutely novel. Emergences "even when new to indivi.lual experience, are most usually to 1 o met with the m mtal acceptance indicated by the Sydney comment on the Elingamite wreck, that passengers and crew behaved “according to the best tradition of right conduct ’ in such a case. With animals, it must be doubtful how far acts can be guided by “ tradition,” and it appears quite possible that their brain-power is tested by sudden contact with events entirely unfamiliar and unforseen. The essayist cites the incident of the boar at bay, which so often furnishes dramatic material to the painter and poet. “ Yet this stand of the hunted beast, conducted on his part with wonderful skill, strength, and courage, in a position chosen with astonishing judgent, is often the first and last in his lifetime. The circumstances are entirely unfamiliar, but the animal does ail that a living thing can do ; just as if fighting for life against strange and resistless adversaries were an everyday task.” Fishes again have, as a rule, the misfortune to be enclosed in a net only once, fur individuals i which escape a cast of the seine flee I from the dangerous spot as if it were tainted by the plague. Yet the grey mullet is said to display as !much ingenuity and skill in iendeavouring to escape from the ! meshed walls as would be astonishing in the highest of the mammalia. |The invention of glass, amongst |other things, has given a test of | intelligence both to birds and Hies. The bluebottle has not yet adapted litself to the idea of transparency as ; hard as adamant. It dashes into a |room through the open window, ibuzzes round the ceiling, investigates the floor and the table, and ’then attempting to find its way out lagain, bumps its head against one j of the panes with a force sufficient Ito break the neck of a vertebrate.” I The fautail, once familiar round j Christchurch, often entered a room, Ito dash himself wildly for a time 'against the closed panes, until, suddenly grasping another aspect of the affair, ho sets to work upon the assembled flies, ending his experience of the- unexpected by a 'death from repletion. Such deaths, j though chiefly amongst seabirds, stand also in the Longman’s curious S list of instances, with a comment |on the fatality. “A superfluity of ’ food oomes at such rare intervals chat when ‘it ctoes come the avian intellect reels at the prospect, and what seems a horn of plenty brings dire disaster.”—Press.