2-888-180 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Mdelle. Emilie Emilie Vandermeersch, 1850. 'This young lady...has applied herself from an early age to the training of birds...she exercises over them an extraordinary power, inducing them to perform feats of a wholly different kind from those which have been done by trained animals before. They are, or at least seem to be, acts of intelligence...because, after the most careful and minute observation, we have been unable to arrive at even a guess as to the manner in which Mdlle. Emilie Vandermeersch communicates with the birds...the birds tell the day of the week, month, or year; the seasons; the time by any one's watch; or they will spell any word indicated, provided it do not contain any one letter twice over...Mdlle. Emilie Vandermeersch is a native of Toulouse, and is not more than 17 or 18 years of age - a fact which makes her power over these birds the more remarkable'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.