The faculties of birds / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The faculties of birds / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    28/392 page 8
    descries*.” We have ourselves more than once seen the osprey dash down from a height of two or three hundred feet upon a fish of no considerable size, and which a man could with difficulty have perceived at the same distance-}-; but, in an instance elsewhere mentioned |, we observed the golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetas, Aldrovand), at Mehlem on the Rhine, beating about among the orchards, as if it were on the look out for a hare or a rabbit; and if it were allowed to make a single instance like this overturn a general conclusion, we might oppose it to the testimonies already adduced. Ross, in his voyage to Baffin’s Bay, proved that a man under favourable circumstances could see over the surface of the ocean to the extent of one hundred and fifty English miles. It is not probable that any animal exceeds this power of vision, though birds perhaps excel men and most quadrupeds in sharpness of sight. M. Schmidt threw, at a considerable distance from a thrush (Turdns rnvsicus), a few small beetles, of a pale grey colour, which the unassisted human eye could not discover, yet the thrush observed them immediately and devoured them. The bottle-tit (Parus caudatus) flits with great quickness among the branches of trees, and finds on the very smooth bark its particular food, where nothing is perceptible to the naked eye, though insects can be detected there by the microscope. A very tame redbreast (Rkon- della rubecula) discovered crumbs from the height of the branch where it usually sat, at the distance of eighteen feet from the ground, the instant they were thrown down, and this by bending its head to one side, and using, of course, only one eye. At the same distance a quail (Coturnix major, Brisson) dis- * Oiseaux d’Afrique, i. 18. t J. R. £ Architecture of Birds, p. 174.
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3