Aesop's fable of the Crow and Pitcher proved true. Clever rooks do drop stones to raise the water level and float a treat.
Researchers found that rooks, members of the crow family, can use stones to raise the level of water in a container - just like the bird in the tale The Crow And The Pitcher.
In the story, written thousands of years ago by the Ethiopian slave Aesop, a thirsty crow finds a pitcher containing too little water for his beak to reach.
He solves the problem by throwing pebbles into the pitcher one by one, until the water level rises high enough for him to drink.
In a series of tests, the four rooks named Cook, Fry, Connelly and Monroe were offered a tempting treat - a juicy worm floating on the surface of water in a vertical tube.
Then the researchers provide a solution in the form of a handful of pebbles. The rooks picked up the stones and dropped them into the tube to raise the water level and bring the worm within reach.
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