Im April 1917, millionaire Thomas Mills approached Amiral Sir James Starten at Granton navy base in Edinburgh, Scotland, on the north shore of the Firth of Forth with his-Mills own original anti-U boat device.
It consisted of MARINE SHAPED FLOAT with a dumy periscope discharging pieces of meat into the water every few minutes-segulls seeing the food would then begin to make a mental association between periscopes and meat so that when German U-Boats sailed up the Firth of Forth the seagulls would swoop on their periscopes gving away their position.
However, trials in the Firth of Forth showed that the seagulls were-well, seagulls not Pavlov's dogs for the birds ignored the meat infested dummy periscopes-thus failed one of the wackiest anti-U-boat in World War One schemes.