. Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado . ily things of the past. Birds profit by experience. They have learned toavoid the treacherous wires during flight. They havefurther discovered that a telegraph wire forms a verycomfortable perch, which that incomprehensible andeccentric being—man—has erected for their specialbenefit. Thus it happens that the traveller by railroadsees a succession of birds perched upon the message-bearing wires, as though they were sitting for theirphotographs, for the passing of the train does not per-turb t
. Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado . ily things of the past. Birds profit by experience. They have learned toavoid the treacherous wires during flight. They havefurther discovered that a telegraph wire forms a verycomfortable perch, which that incomprehensible andeccentric being—man—has erected for their specialbenefit. Thus it happens that the traveller by railroadsees a succession of birds perched upon the message-bearing wires, as though they were sitting for theirphotographs, for the passing of the train does not per-turb them in the least. A telegraph wire is, however,too attenuated to form a comfortable perch for somebirds. For such there are the poles and insulatorsready to hand, and of these the hawks and kites arenot slow to avail themselves. Birds which feed upon flying insects are particularlyaddicted to the telegraph wires, for these latter consti-tute an ideal point of vantage from whence the birdcan look out for its quarry. Thus king-crows {Dicrurusater) are to be seen distributed along the whole extent. BKAHMINV MYNA
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjectbirdsin, bookyear1906
