The Barre Daily Times

A Night's Lodging.

Your recent notes in regard to changes in the habits of birds resulting from their association with man are of especial interest to all bird lovers. They suggest that the line of action sometimes adopted by our feathered friends under a new environment may be dictated by something closely akin to what we are pleased to call reason as opposed to instinct. My family of Virginia quail (four in number) occupy a coop about 6x24 feet in ground space and six feet in height, the netted front facing the south. All the remaining sides and roof are of ordinary inch boards, and several low bushes growing within the inclosure furnished a natural shelter. Every one familiar with our quail is aware of the fact that they spend the night upon the ground; but these birds, having been sometimes disturbed by marauding cats, evidently determined that it was advisable to "roost high," and they accordingly selected a place on a ledge that ran across the back of the coop some five feet above the ground. With the idea of humoring their wishes I nailed on this ledge in one corner of the coop a box about twelve inches square, open at the top and front. This the quail promptly occupied at night during the mild weather of January. But during the recent cold snap, and on windy nights they seek a roosting place on the ground as usual, evidently adapting the night's lodging, as a matter of choice, to the varying conditions of the weather.

Would it not seem that an intelligence which is capable of making a selection first as a consideration of safety, and afterward modifies that selection as a matter of comfort, is to be classed as something beyond and above so-called instinct? -Correspondence in Forest and Stream.