The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

The shrinking of wild birds from the hand of man is almost as pronounced in captivity as it is in the wilderness, and this fact renders psychological experiments with birds extremely difficult. It is really strange that the parrots and cockatoos all should take kindly to man, trust him and even like him, while nearly all other birds persistently fly, or run, or swim or dive away from him. A bird keeper may keep for twenty years, feeding daily, but his hawks, owls and eagles, the perchers, waders, swimmers and upland game birds all fly from him in nervous fear whenever he attempts to handle them. The exceptions to this rule, out of the 20,000 species of the birds of the world, are few. Wild Birds that Voluntarily Associate with Man. The species that will do so are not numerous, and I will confine myself to some of those that I have seen. The Indian adjutant, the mynah, hoopoe, vulture, robin, phoebe bird, bluebird, swallow, barn owl, flicker, oriole, jay, magpie, crow, purple grackle, starling, stork, wood pigeon, Canada goose, mallard, pintail, bob white and a few other species have accepted man at his face value and endeavored to establish with him a modus vivendi. The mallard and the graylag goose are the ancestors of our domestic ducks and geese. The jungle fowls have given us the domestic chickens. The wild turkey, the pheasants, the guinea fowl, the ostrich, the emu and the peacock we possess in domestication unchanged. Caged Wild Birds Quickly Appreciate Sanctuary. Mr. Crandall reports that in the Zoological Park there have been many instances of the voluntary return to their cages of wild birds that have escaped from them. The following instances are cited, out of many that are remembered: