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Show SHOWED INSTINCT OF SWANS Birds Had Learned the Trick of Ringing Ring-ing a Bell to Get Their Supply of Food. During a recent visit to the cathedral cathed-ral city of Wells, in Somersetshire, a Scotsman correspondent was witness of a curious incident. The Episcopal palace is surrounded, just as in oldc-u ! times, by a wall and a moat, the haunt of swar.s. ducks, and other aquatic 1 birds. The moat is crossed at the en-1 en-1 trance to the palace grounds by a I drawbridge with a battlemented gate-! gate-! way with towers, in one of which is j the gatekeeper's ledge. From a bracket fixed in the wall of one of these towers overlooking the moat a bell is suspended, with a cord attached. at-tached. One afternoon about five o'clock, while watching the movements of the various birds in the water, the corre-j corre-j spondent heard the ringing cf a bell, and, on looking to see whence the j sound came, he observed that one of the swans was vigorously pulling the I cord evidently to attract attention. As j no immediate notice was taken of its efforts, the impatient bird continued j to ring the bell violently until there appeared at the window of the tower the wife of the gatekeeper, who throv out a quantity ot food to the expectant waterfov, 1. On making inquiries as to the origin j of this interesting episode, the correspondent corre-spondent was told that a number of years ago a daughter of the bishop ot Wells, being mufh interested in tha birds inhabiting the moat, taught the swans to ring the bell at foeCing-tin.e, i at live o'clock in the afternoon. This practice has been continued by Nueces- ; sive families of swans down tp the present day, and it would ei hii, therefore, there-fore, as if the birds transmitted to their offspring the knowledge that when the cord was pulled the b-:ll ! would ring and that food would follow. |