Abstract
THE Central Prison at Agra is the roosting-place of great numbers of the common blue pigeon; they fly out to the neighbouring country for food every morning, and return in the evening, when they drink at a tank just outside the prison walls. In this tank are a large number of freshwater turtles, which lie in wait for the pigeons, just under the surface of the water and at the edge of it. Any bird alighting to drink near one of these turtles has a good chance of having its head bitten off and eaten; and the headless bodies of pigeons have been picked up near the water, showing the fate which has sometimes befallen the birds. The pigeons, however, are aware of the danger, and have hit on the following plan to escape it. A pigeon comes in from its long flight, and, as it nears the tank, instead of flying down at once to the water's edge, will cross the tank at about twenty feet-above its surface, and then fly back to the side from which it came, apparently selecting for alighting a safe spot which it had remarked as it flew over the bank; but even when such a spot has been selected the bird will not alight at the edge of the water, but on the bank about a yard from the water, and will then run down quickly to the water, take two or three hurried gulps of it, and then fly off to repeat the same process at another part of the tank till its thirst is satisfied. I had often watched the birds doing this, and could not account for their strange mode of drinking till told by my friend, the superintendent of the prison, of the turtles which lay in ambush for the pigeons.
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NICHOLLS, W. Intellect in Brutes. Nature 22, 266 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/022266d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/022266d0
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