2 Bird - Lore 



as game in France) are fairly common, but nothing approaching their abun- 

 dance in England. 



The effect of cannon-fire on birds is amazing. Almost without exception 

 they absolutely disregard it. Even easily disturbed birds, like Crows and Wood- 

 pigeons, are quite indifferent. My first experience of a heavy cannonade was 

 in the early spring of last year (191 5). The Blackbirds were all singing in the 

 trees that lined the Yser Canal when on a sudden hundreds of guns of every 

 calibre burst into a terrific and continuous cannonade; the enemy answered, 

 and shells tore through the trees for hour after hour. 



The effect was absolutely stunning to us humans, and when after three 

 hours there was a sudden and complete cessation, the first thing that one's 

 reeling senses realized was that the Blackbirds were still serenely fluting away^ — 

 I don't think they had ever ceased. 



Another time I was listening to the rich chucklings and gurglings of a Night- 

 ingale — the first of the season — and had located the songster with my glass, 

 when the morning calm was shattered by a burst of rifle-fire close by; the 

 retiring and elusive bird paid no attention, nor did he seek a lower or less con- 

 spicuous perch. 



The only exception I have noticed out here to this general disregard (natural 

 or acquired?) of noise, was in the case of one species, the Green Sandpiper, the 

 Old World congener of our Sohtary Sandpiper. 



Twice I have seen this bird, and each time in a highly nervous state from 

 shell-fire. 



One of these instances afforded me some amusement at a time when a 

 diversion was welcome. We were enduring nine hours of heavy hostile shelling 

 with very inadequate shelter. As I lay behind a breastwork of sandbags, 1 

 watched the antics of a Green Sandpiper who was trying to get his breakfast in 

 the water-filled shell-holes close by. Every time he settled, a big high explosive 

 shell would burst nearby with a deafening crash and a geyser of black loam, 

 and away would go the poor bird to circle in the blue for perhaps ten minutes, 

 and then pitch down in front of me again, to repeat the same performance as 

 another shell would land near him almost immediately. 



Meanwhile an unruffled Cuckoo called continuously in some nearby pol- 

 lard willows, and Larks (Crested Larks, very much like Sky-larks) rose one 

 after the other, sometimes from the close vicinity of a bursting shell, singing 

 serenely as if there was nothing to mar a perfect day. 



My friend, M'C. de B. Green, who is driving an ambulance for the French 

 in the Vosges, tells me the same indifference to shell-fire exists in the birds of 

 that region, and with a corresponding scarcity of game. Wild boar however 

 are apparently on the increase. 



He also made the discovery of a new enemy to bird-life, although he had 

 suspected its existence for some years past. This is the large slug of these parts, 

 which destroys a large proportion of the eggs of ground and low-nesting small 



