Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 February 1875 — Instinct of Birds. [ARTICLE]

Instinct of Birds.

It is interesting to observe the provision which birds make for their daily wants and with what certainty and success they are provided by instinct. The woodpecker grasps the trunk of a tree with his claws, and, standing upon his tail, by repeated strokes of his bill penetrates the hardest wood an inch or more until he finds the worm of which he is in search. In summer a common habit of it is said to be to lie with its long tongue protruding alongside of an ant-nest, drawing it in whenever covered with the ants, a favorite article of food.. The nuthatch opens the shells of nuts by repeated blows of his sharp, horny hill. During the winter a few shellbarks or walnuts cracked and placed above the ground will attract useful and pretty little birds. The butcher-bird, which lives on insects and smaller birds, is said to secure the latter by imitating their call and thus drawing them near him; and has a habit of impaling upon thorns such insects as he does not need at the time. Perhaps the trick of gathering what he does not want, and wasting what might be serviceable to others, is learned from his intercourse with man. The whippoorwill will sit upon a fence-rail and give utterance to the most mournful notes, as if his mother-in-law and all his other friends were dead and he was ready to follow them; but death to the insect that believes in the sincerity of the mourner’s wailings, or imagines that he has lost his appetite; the guileless moth is seized and swallowed without the bird even suspending his sad strain. Crows and sea-gulls are fond of shellfish, bat, being unable to open them, carry them to a great elevation and let them fall on the rocks beneath in order that they can indulge in the delicate morsel within. In this manner it is said a philosopher’s head was broken in ancient times, being mistaken for a stone. Whether this is true or not I cannot say, hut I know that it would be difficult to fracture some of the heads of savans in a similar manner at the present day. The bald-eagle obtains his subsistence In a very discreditable but ingenious manner. He calmly sits on the limb of some prominent tree, near the margin of

the water, and with his wings raised a few inches from hia body eagerly watches the movements of the fishing-eagles busily engaged in searching for their favorite food. Ere long he sees an osprey dive heavily into the wide expanse before him, mid reappearing with a scream of triumph, bearing in his hill a struggling fish. Then the gaze of the eagle is riveted on his compulsory purveyor, his wings are extended and be passes through the air like an arrow in pursuit of his less powerful relative. By superior strength and speed he overtakes the osprey and by repeated attacks makes it drop its much-prized food. Knowing that if tbe fish touched the water it would swim off and be lost, the bald eagle by a long swoop never fails to catch it on its downward course. In winter, when the Chesapeake Bay is full of ice, and fish cannot be obtained, the eagle becomes very bold and fearless and will often approach close to the sink-boxes of the gunners immediately after a heavy discharge at a passing flock of ducks, and carry off in safety a killed or wounded bird, apparently knowing that it can do so without injury to itself, as the guns could not be reloaded before it was far away with its prize. It is unfortunate that our national bird should indulge in the degrading habit of living sumptuously on the property of its weaker species; but it is not exceptional in this respect, as the king of birds only does what is often done by the kings of men.—Exchange.