King Solomon's Ring Page 14

  This lack of leadership revealed itself in another and even more serious way. Young jackdaws have no innate reactions against the enemies which threaten them, whereas a good many other birds, such as magpies, mallards or robins, prepare at once for flight at their very first sight of a cat, a fox or even a squirrel. They behave in just the same way, whether reared by man or by their own parents. Never will a young magpie allow itself to be caught by a cat and the tamest of hand-reared mallards will instantly react to a red-brown skin, pulled along the back of the pond on a string. She will treat such a dummy exactly as if she realized all the properties of her mortal enemy, the fox. She becomes anxiously cautious and, taking to the water, never for a moment averts her eyes from the enemy. Then, swimming, she follows it wherever it goes, without ceasing to utter her warning cries. She knows, or rather her innate reacting mechanisms know, that the fox can neither fly, nor swim quickly enough to catch her in the water, so she follows it around to keep it in sight, to broadcast its presence and, in this way, to spoil the success of its stalking.

  Recognition of the enemy—which in mallards and many other birds is an inborn instinct—must be learned personally by the young jackdaws. Learned through their own experience? No, more curious still: by actual tradition, by the handing-down of personal experience from one generation to the next!

  Of all the reactions which, in the jackdaw, concern the recognition of an enemy, only one is innate: any living being that carries a black thing, dangling or fluttering, becomes the object of a furious onslaught. This is accompanied by a grating cry of warning whose sharp, metallic, echoing sound expresses, even to the human ear, the emotion of embittered rage. At the same time the jackdaw assumes a strange forward leaning attitude and vibrates its half-spread wings. If you possess a tame jackdaw, you may, on occasion, venture to pick it up to put it into its cage or, perhaps, to cut its overgrown claws. But not if you have two! Jock, who was as tame as any dog, had never resented the occasional touch of my hand, but when the young jackdaws came to our house, it was a different story altogether: on no account would she allow me to touch one of these small, black nestlings. As all unsuspecting, I did so for the first time, I heard behind me the sharp satanic sound of that raucous rattle, a black arrow swooped down from above, over my shoulder and on to the hand which held the jackdaw baby—astonished, I stared at a round, bleeding, deeply pecked wound in the back of my hand! That first observation of this type of attack was, in itself, illuminating as to the instinctive blindness of the impulse. Jock was, at this time, still very devoted to me and hated these fourteen young jackdaws most cordially. (Her adoption of Leftgold took place later on.) I was forced to protect them from her continually: she would have destroyed them, at one fell swoop, if she had been left alone with them for a few minutes. Nevertheless she could not tolerate my taking one of the babies into my hand. The blind reflex nature of the reaction became even clearer to me through a coincidental observation later that summer. One evening, as dusk fell, I returned from a swim in the Danube and, according to my custom, I hurried to the loft to call the jackdaws home and lock them up for the night. As I stood in the gutter, I suddenly felt something wet and cold in my trouser pocket into which, in my hurry, I had pushed my black bathing drawers. I pulled them out—and the next moment was surrounded by a dense cloud of raging, rattling jackdaws, which hailed agonizing pecks upon my offending hand.

  It was interesting to observe the jackdaws’ reaction to other black objects which I carried in my hands. My large, old, naturalist’s camera never caused a similar commotion, although it was black and I held it in my hands, but the jackdaws would start their rattling cry as soon as I pulled out the black paper strips of the pack film which fluttered to and fro in the breeze. That the birds knew me to be harmless, and even a friend, made no difference whatever: as soon as I held in my hand something black and moving, I was branded as an “eater of jackdaws”. More extraordinary still is the fact that the same thing may happen to a jackdaw itself: I have witnessed a typical rattling attack on a female jackdaw who was carrying to her nest the wing feather of a raven. On the other hand, tame jackdaws neither emit their rattling cry, nor make an attack, if you hold in your hand one of their own young whilst it is still naked and, therefore, not yet black. This I proved experimentally with the first pair of jackdaws which nested in my colony. The two birds, Greengold and Redgold—two of the aforementioned fourteen—were completely tame, perched on my head and shoulders and were not in the least upset if I handled their nest and watched all their activities at close quarters. Even when I took the babies from the nest and presented them to their parents on the palm of my hand, it left them quite unmoved. But the very day that the small feathers on the nestling burst through their quills, changing their colour into black, there followed a furious attack by the parents on my outstretched hand.

  After a typical rattling attack, the jackdaws are exceedingly mistrustful and hostile towards the person or animal which has given rise to it. This burning emotion stamps incredibly quickly into the bird’s memory an ineradicable picture which associates the situation “jackdaw in the jaws of the enemy”, with the person of the plunderer himself. Provoke a jackdaw’s rattling attack two or three times running and you have lost its friendship for ever! From now on, it scolds as soon as it sees you, and you are branded, even when you are not carrying a black and fluttering object in your hands. And further, this jackdaw will easily succeed in convincing all the others of your guilt. Rattling is exceedingly infectious and stimulates its hearers to attack as promptly as does the sight of the black fluttering object in the clutches of the “enemy”. The “evil gossip” that you have once or twice been seen carrying such an object, spreads like wildfire, and, almost before you know it, you are notorious amongst the jackdaws in the whole district as a beast of prey which must at all costs be combated.

  In most respects, all this applies equally to crows. My friend Dr Kramer had the following experience with these birds: he earned a bad reputation among the crow population in the neighbourhood of his house, by repeatedly exposing himself to view with a tame crow on his shoulder. In contrast to my jackdaws who never resented it if one of their number perched on my person, these crows evidently regarded the tame crow sitting on my friend’s shoulder as being “carried by an enemy”, though it perched there of its own free will. After a short time, my friend was known to all crows far and wide, and was pursued over long distances by his scolding assailants, whether or not he was accompanied by his tame bird. Even in different clothing he was recognized by the crows. These observations show vividly that corvines make a sharp distinction between hunters and “harmless” people: even without his gun, a man who has once or twice been seen with a dead crow in his hands will be recognized and not so easily forgotten.

  The original value of the “rattling reaction” is doubtless to rescue a comrade from a predatory animal, or, if this is impossible, so to harry the assailant that, filled with disgust, he will renounce the hunting of jackdaws forever. Even if a goshawk or other enemy were only slightly deterred by the rattling attack from hunting jackdaws, his ensuing preference for other prey would suffice to make the jackdaws’ reaction of great value for the preservation of their species. This original function of the rattling reaction is well developed in all the members of the crow family, including those species that are less gregarious than the jackdaw: similar reactions can even be found in small songbirds.

  With the further development of social relations, particularly in the jackdaw, there arose in addition to the original significance of the “defence of kin reaction” a new and even more important meaning—that, through this behaviour, the recognition of a potential enemy can be communicated to the young and inexperienced birds. This is a real acquired knowledge, not a mere innate, instinctive reaction which is superficially similar to it.

  I do not know whether I have made it quite clear how very remarkable all this is: an animal which does not know its enemy by innate instinc
t, is informed by older and more experienced fellow-members of its species who or what is to be feared as hostile. This is true tradition, the handing-down of personally acquired knowledge from one generation to another. Human children might follow the example of the young jackdaws who take seriously the well-meant warnings of their parents. On the appearance of an enemy, as yet unknown to the young, an old guide jackdaw needs only to give one significant “rattle”, and at once the young birds have formed a mental picture associating the warning with this particular enemy. In the natural life of jackdaws, I think it seldom happens that an inexperienced young bird first receives knowledge of the dangerous character of an enemy by seeing him with a black dangling object in his clutches. Jackdaws nearly always fly in a dense flock, in whose midst there is, in all probability, at least one bird which will begin to “rattle” at the merest sight of an enemy.

  How very human this is! On the other hand, how remarkably blind and reflex-like is the innate perceptual pattern which in the inexperienced young jackdaws provokes a typical “rattling attack”! But have not we human beings also such blind, instinctive reactions? Do not whole peoples all too often react with a blind rage to a mere dummy presented to them by the artifice of the demagogue? Is not this dummy in many cases just as far from being a real enemy as were my black bathing drawers to the jackdaws? And would there still be wars, if all this were not so?

  My fourteen young jackdaws had nobody to warn them of potential dangers. Without a parent bird to give warning by rattling, such a young jackdaw will sit tight while a cat slinks up to it, or alight on the very nose of a mongrel dog, and treat him as if he were as friendly and harmless as the people in whose midst he grew up. No wonder that my jackdaw flock shrank considerably in the first weeks of its liberty. When I realized this danger and its reason, I released the birds only during the hours of full daylight, at a time when few cats were abroad. The task of enticing those birds back to their cage in good time every evening, occasioned me much time and trouble. “Herding a sackful of fleas”—as the German saying goes—is a trifle compared with the problem of tempting fourteen young jackdaws into an aviary. I could not touch them, for fear of starting a rattling attack, and as soon as I had manoeuvred one bird, perched on my hand, through the door of the cage, two others flew out; and even if I used the foremost of the two compartments as a valve, the shutting-in process took at least an hour every evening.

  The settlement of the jackdaw colony in Altenberg has cost me much work, more time—and much money, when I take into consideration the continual damage to the roof of our house. But, as I have said before, my trouble was richly rewarded. What a wonderful object for observation was this colony of completely free, but absolutely trustful jackdaws! At that time—my “jackdaw time”—I knew the characteristic facial expression of every one of those birds by sight. I did not need to look first at their coloured leg-rings. This is no unusual accomplishment: every shepherd knows his sheep, and my daughter Agnes—at the age of five—knew each one of our many wild geese, by their faces. Without having known all the jackdaws personally, it would have been impossible for me to learn the inner secrets of their social life. Have you, dear reader, the slightest idea how long one must watch a flock of thirty jackdaws and how much time one must spend in close contact with them, in order to accomplish this end? It is only by living with animals that one can attain a real understanding of their ways.

  Do animals thus know each other among themselves? They certainly do, though many learned animal psychologists have doubted the fact and indeed denied it categorically. Nevertheless, I can assure you, every single jackdaw of my colony knew each of the others by sight. This can be convincingly demonstrated by the existence of an order of rank, known to animal psychologists as the “pecking order”. Every poultry farmer knows that, even among these more stupid inhabitants of the poultry yards, there exists a very definite order, in which each bird is afraid of those that are above her in rank. After some few disputes, which need not necessarily lead to blows, each bird knows which of the others she has to fear and which must show respect to her. Not only physical strength, but also personal courage, energy, and even the self-assurance of every individual bird are decisive in the maintenance of the pecking order. This order of rank is extremely conservative. An animal proved inferior, if only morally, in a dispute, will not venture lightly to cross the path of its conqueror, provided the two animals remain in close contact with each other. This also holds good for even the highest and most intelligent mammals. A large Nemestrinus monkey bursting with energy, owned by my friend, the late Count Thun-Hohenstein, possessed, even when adult, a deeply rooted respect for an ancient Javanese monkey of half his size who had tyrannized him in the days of his youth. The deposing of an ageing tyrant is always a highly dramatic and usually tragic event, especially in the case of wolves and sledge dogs, as has been observed and graphically described by Jack London in some of his arctic novels.

  The rank order disputes in a jackdaw colony differ in one important way from those of the poultry yard, where the unfortunate cinderellas of the lower orders eke out a truly miserable existence. In every artificial conglomeration of less socially inclined animals, such as in the poultry yard and the song bird aviary, those higher in the social scale tend to set upon their comrades of lower rank, and the lower the standing of the individual, the more savagely will he be pecked at by all and sundry. This is often carried so far that the wretched victim, bullied from all sides, is never able to rest, is always short of food and, if the owner does not interfere, may finally waste away altogether. With jackdaws, quite the contrary is the case: in the jackdaw colony, those of the higher orders, particularly the despot himself, are not aggressive towards the birds that stand far beneath them; it is only in their relations towards their immediate inferiors that they are constantly irritable; this applies especially to the despot and the pretender to the throne—Number One and Number Two. Such behaviour may be difficult for a casual observer to understand. A jackdaw sits feeding at the communal dish, a second bird approaches ponderously, in an attitude of self-display, with head proudly erected, whereupon the first visitor moves slightly to one side, but otherwise does not allow himself to be disturbed. Now comes a third bird, in a much more modest attitude which, surprisingly enough, puts the first bird to flight; the second, on the other hand, assumes a threatening pose, with his back feathers ruffled, attacks the latest comer and drives him from the spot. The explanation: the latest comer stood in order of rank midway between the two others, high enough above the first to frighten him and just so far beneath the second as to be capable of arousing his anger. Very high caste jackdaws are most condescending to those of lowest degree and consider them merely as the dust beneath their feet; the self-display actions of the former are here a pure formality and only in the event of too close approximation does the dominant bird adopt a threatening attitude, but he very rarely attacks.

  The degree of animosity of the higher orders towards the lower is in direct proportion to their rank, and it is interesting to note that this essentially simple behaviour results in an impartial levelling-up of the disputes between individual members of the colony. The gestures of anger and attack may also stimulate those against whom they are not directed. I myself, when I hear two people cursing each other in an overcrowded tramcar, have to suppress an almost uncontrollable desire to box the ears of both parties soundly. High ranking jackdaws evidently feel the same emotion, but, as they are in no way inhibited by the horror of making a scene, they interfere vigorously in the quarrel of two subordinates, as soon as the argument gets heated. The arbitrator is always more aggressive towards the higher ranking of the two original combatants. Thus a highcaste jackdaw, particularly the despot himself, acts regularly on chivalrous principles—where there’s an unequal fight, always take the weaker side. Since the major quarrels are mostly concerned with nesting sites (in nearly all other cases, the weaker bird withdraws without a struggle), this propensity of the strong
male jackdaws ensures an active protection of the nests of the lower members of the colony.

  Once the social order of rank amongst the members of a colony is established it is most conscientiously preserved by jackdaws, much more so than by hens, dogs or monkeys. A spontaneous re-shuffling, without outside influence, and due only to the discontent of one of the lower orders, has never come to my notice. Only once, in my colony, did I witness the de-throning of the hitherto ruling tyrant, Goldgreen. It was a returned wanderer who, having lost in his long absence his former deeply imbued respect for his ruler, succeeded in defeating him in their very first encounter. In the autumn of 1931, the conqueror, “Double-aluminium”—he derived this strange name from the rings on his feet—came back, after having been away the whole summer. He returned home strong in heart and stimulated by his travels, and at once subdued the former autocrat. His victory was remarkable for two reasons: first, Double-aluminium, who was unmated and therefore fighting alone, was opposed in the struggle by both the former ruler and his wife. Secondly, the victor was only one and a half years old, whereas Goldgreen and his wife both dated back to the original fourteen jackdaws with which I started the settlement in 1927.