The Instinct of Birds — A Storm Coming

1901

While a British brig was gliding smoothly along before a good breeze in the South Pacific, a flock of small birds about the size, shape and color of paroquets, settled down in the rigging, and passed an hour or more resting.

The second mate was so anxious to find out the species to which the visiting strangers belonged that he tried to entrap a specimen, but the birds were too shy to be thus caught, and too spry to be seized by the quick hands of the sailors. At the end of about an hour the birds took the brig's course, and disappeared, but toward nightfall they came back and passed the night in the maintop.

The next morning the birds flew off again, and when they returned at noon the sailors scattered some food about the decks. By this time the birds had become so tame that they hopped about the decks picking up the crumbs.

That afternoon an astonishing thing happened. The flock came flying swiftly toward the brig. Every bird seemed to be piping as if pursued by some invisible enemy on wings, and they at once huddled down behind a deck house. The superstitious sailors at once called the captain of the brig, who rubbed his eyes and looked at the barometer. A glance showed that something was wrong with the elements, and the brig was put in shape to outride a storm.

The storm came about 20 minutes after the birds had reached the vessel. For a few minutes the sky was like the waterless bottom of a lake — a vast arch of yellowish mud — and torrents of rain fell. Why it did not blow very hard no one knows; but on reaching port, two days later, they learned that a great tornado had swept across that part of the sea. — Our Dumb Animals.