48 



THE OOLOGIST 



about 150 yards down the road which 

 was placed in the customary manner 

 over the charge. As I waited I heard 

 the familiar sweet notes of a rollick- 

 ing flock of Pine Siskins. Glancing 

 upward I saw them coming toward me 

 about 30 in number and straight for 

 the ominous brush pile. Flying at a 

 height of about 60 feet they passed 

 directly over it at the instant of the 

 explosion and the air was filled with 

 dust and pieces of flying rock. The 

 birds appeared to be literally swal- 

 lowed up in it and as none were seen 

 to emerge in any direction 1 believed 

 that many if not all were killed. 



R. W. Tufts, Wolfville, N. S. 



WRENS AND WARS. 



Major O. C. C. Nicolls, late of the 

 Royal Artillery, sends us the following 

 clipping taken from the Royal Ar- 

 tillery Magazine, and of this incident 

 he says, "It isn't a fiction," and it is 

 truly a remarkable incident. 

 In Nieppe Forest. 



In the spring of 1918 my battery was 

 in action in Nieppe Forest. Our guns 

 were protected by epaulments of fas- 

 cines, which fascines were made by 

 the Chinese Labour Corps in the peace- 

 ful days when the war was further 

 east. The epaulments were carried 

 high at the sides, to protect the de- 

 tachment from splinters, and laths 

 were stretched across the top to carry 

 the green camouflage. So much for 

 the mise-en-scene. 



Amongst our forest friends were 

 two wrens, who, looking around for 

 a nesting place, found a pair of spurs, 

 belonging to one of our subalterns, 

 hanging on a small branch projecting 

 from the mass bivouac. The founda- 

 tion of the nest was wound around 

 spurs and branch with wonderful 

 speed, and the subaltern had to resign 

 himself to spurlessness. 



Unfortunately, we had to move our 



position temporarily a few days later, 

 for some festival. On our return we 

 found that some unscrupulous person 

 had destroyed the nest and absconded 

 with the spurs. Apparently our re- 

 turn reassured the little builders, for 

 we had hardly got our guns into their 

 pits, when the pair were discovered 

 constructing another nest between a 

 lath and the camouflaging over No. 3 

 gun. This was serious. It is the one 

 thing for a highly paid subaltern to 

 sacrifice his spurs, but quite another 

 for a 4.5-inch howitzer to give up the 

 war; so the wrens had to take their 

 chance. Daily and nightly the gun 

 fired, and men scraped and cleaned 

 and carted ammunition about the pit; 

 but the nest was built. 



Every time the gun fired, the lath — 

 which was not two yards from the 

 breech — jumped nearly six inches. But 

 the camouflage netting held the nest 

 on the lath, and the eggs were laid. 



If the mother was ever off the nest 

 when the gun was fired, she flew 

 back, sat on the eggs, and held on 

 for dear life to keep them down, as 

 someone said. Strange to say, the 

 whole sitting hatched out. The hun- 

 gry, squawking little mouths became 

 an excuse for diverting brigadiers' at- 

 tention from a searching cross-exami- 

 nation on markings on ammunition. 

 The noise, deafening to human ears, in 

 no way stunted the nestlings' growth. 

 They were fledged just in time to al- 

 low us to take the camouflage with us 

 when we moved to St. Venant. 



A PERFECT DAY. 



Any true Oologist I believe will ex- 

 perience a thrill of excitement when 

 he collects for the first time the eggs 

 of a species of which he has never 

 before personally taken, even though 

 the species may be one of the com- 

 monest. Most of my collecting has 



