Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!helios!tamuts!e343gv
From: e343gv@tamuts.tamu.edu (Gary Varner)
Newsgroups: rec.birds
Subject: Re: recognition
Message-ID: <16918@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 5 Jun 91 17:11:15 GMT
References: <21828@brahms.udel.edu> <1991May31.195256.4285@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu>
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Organization: Texas A&M University
Lines: 37

In article <1991May31.195256.4285@maverick.ksu.ksu.edu> 
drintoul@matt.ksu.ksu.edu (David A Rintoul) writes:

>I don't remember the source, but several years back I heard about a
>person doing research in a gull colony on the Farallon Islands.  He
>always wore a specific stocking cap, and the gulls responded by mobbing
>that stocking cap, no matter whose head it adorned.  When the same person
>appeared without the stocking cap, he was not treated so viciously.

In NATURAL HISTORY magazine for 6/88 Larry Spear, researching gulls
on the Farallon islands argues that they recognized his FACE not his
characteristic CAP.

After extensive banding of the birds by him caused them to fly in
histeria above the rookery everytime he appeared (making it impossible
to continue his research on nesting behavior) he tried:

	1) wearing different clothes and a mask,
	2) wearing a mask but different clothes, and
	3) wearing different clothes but no mask.

In scenario (1) no reaction occurred, in scenario (2) none, but in
(3) there was the usual bedlam; from which he concluded that they were
recognizing his FACE.  He ended up wearing a painted-on clown's mask
to cntinue his research.

What you may be remembering is that when, under scenario (2), he
wore his characteristic cap, "a mild distress response ensued" (p. 8).
But because bedlam ensued when he went out dressed entirely differently
(and in fact walking with a limp) but without the mask, he concluded
that they recognize FACES.
 _________________________________________________________________
|    |  |____    Gary Varner          "I just don't have much use |
| ___|       |   Philosophy           for people who stand around |
| \       *  |   Texas A&M                      in coats and ties |
|  \/\      /   e343gv@tamuts.tamu.edu            and sip sherry" |
|_____\___/_______________________________________________________|