The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-04-19
SoME FeArH-REo HERDERs.
Birds That Combine to Drive Fish and
insects together 10 Feed Upon.
From the New York SIM

Birds That Combine to Drive Fish and
Insects together 10 Feed Upon.
From the New York Sun.
People who casually glance into ma
tlonal history stories run up against
facts which they laugh at as being the
creation of somebody's fevered imagi-
nation. Even sportsmen's papers have
scoffed editorially at truthful accounts
of doings of bird or animal A few
days ago The Sun contained an article
from the Popular Science News about
bird that herded sheep and tended
fowls like shepherd dog.
We'll, that's the steepestr said a
Brooklynite when he had read IL.
How sop was asked.
why, the idea of fool birds tend
ing flock of sheep. What everlasting
lies they do print, don't they?'
Dogs tend sheep, don't they?" was
asked.
why, yes, of course, but dogs have
brains and birds haven't"
AS matter of fact, there is nothing
a dog can do which birds do not do, and
there are good many things birds do
naturally which dogs have to be taught
to do. The reason dog stories are be-
lieved, naturalist says. is that dogs
are familiar companions and well OBJ
served, while birds, because of lack of
observation, are much less known, and
the things they do seem impossible TO
the novice.
There are three varieties of water
birds and one land bird, at least, which
are natural herders. Swans, cormo-
rants and pelicans gather in f1ocks of
their own kind. have a confab, then
stretch out in line across the mouth
of bayou with their bills all pointing
up the bayou. Once marshaled in
proper form the birds flap their wings
and tails till the water Tiies, and make
all sorts of vocal sounds, swimming up
the bayou all the time. The first OBJ
servers of this habit thought the birds
were certainly crazy, but after a while
method was observed in the apparent
madness. Then 1t was called a mar
velous instinct" The splashing scared
the fish and they fed up the bayou
into the shallow water, followed closely
by the birds. While most of the flock
held the fish in the shallow water by
continuous splashing, two or three of
the birds went in among the fish and
gathered into their pouches, or craws,
enough for a mess, when they Joined
the driving line and their places were
taken by other birds till are were we'll
fed.
Turkeys. both tame and wild, go
along I'm a curved line, one deep and
just clear of each other, soaring up the
graSShopperS, which lily TO right or lett
and are struck quick by the turkeys in
front of which they alight.
One or two instances are reported
where sandhill cranes have done like
wise out on the prairies. so probably
they, too, are herders.
In this line probably the most extra
ordinary feat is that of several hawks
near Las Animas. n. NJ, reported by
+. T. Weber TO the Forest and Stream
In March, 1892. A telephone line had
been run from the town to a ranch
some distance away. In that locality
the hawks are unusually abundant, and
there are also numerous flocks of small
birds there. Getting beyond a large
flock of small birds the hawks come
sweeping toward them in such a fierce |
way as to cause the small birds to rise |
and fee in terror before them. In their |
excitement the small birds do not no. |
tice the wire. and many a one is driven |
against 1t and killed or crippled, to be- |
come food for the hawks. That the |
hawks know what they are about is |
shown by the fact that they do not |
pursue the birds further than the tele- |
phone wire. or IL they do. 1t is only |
when none falls. In this case the hawks /
to get beyond the fleeing /
birds to turn them back toward the 1
wire, much as cowboys turn stamped
ng cattle.