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

The one thing on which the wedge-tailed eagle really insists when in his summer quarters, is his daily spray bath from a hose. When his keeper goes in to give the daily morning wash to the cage, the eagles perch close above his head and screech and scream until the spray is turned upon them. Then they spread their wings, to get it thoroughly, and come out thoroughly soaked. When the spray is merely turned upon their log instead of upon the birds as they sit higher up, they fly down and get into the current wherever it may be. Memory of the Cereopsis Goose. Keeper Atkin also showed me an instance of the wisdom of the cereopsis geese, from Van Diemens Land, South Australia. During the winter those birds are kept in the Wild-Fowl Pond; but in summer they are quartered in a secluded yard of the Crane's Paddock, nearly half a mile away. Twice a year these birds go under their own steam between those two enclosures. When turned out of the Cranes' Paddock last November they at once set out and walked very briskly southward up the Bird's Valley, past the Zebra House. On reaching the Service Road, a quarter of a mile away, they turned to the left and kept on to the Wolf Dens. There they turned to the right and kept on two hundred yards until they reached the walk coming down from the Reptile House. There they turned to the left, crossed the bridge, stopped at the gate to the Wild-Fowl Pond enclosure, and when the gate was opened they entered and declared themselves "at home."