From Far and Near. 37 



as May. I never found a nest of either, and am not sure if they bred 

 there. 



About the middle of March a large migration of waders occurred, 

 all going, of course, north over the Pas-de-Calais uplands. Peewits : golderi 

 plover, curlew, and dunlin could be seen passing, and occasionally rest- 

 ing every day for a fortnight, and also two or three fl<Kk3 of geese, 

 followed on March 19th by the first chiff-chaff. 



In 1915 I failed to see a single wood wren, but last winter I 

 noticed a wood which seemed to me a typical wood wren covert, and I 

 was not disappointed, for three pairs of them came to it, and no doubt 

 nested, but I never could find a woodwren's nest and only know one 

 mar. wh(. can. It was a noisy wood in the summer, being full of golden 

 orioles and other songsters of various sorts and sizes. The only nest 

 of a golden oriole I saw last summer was in an alder, and very easy 

 to see, though I confess I wnlkc I under it and stared at it manv a 

 time before I saw it, and then h.id to be shown it by a man who had 

 never seen one before. The nest is at least one size too small for tho 

 bird, and m ust be very uncomfortable to sit in. That was a red-letter 

 day, for o ver and above the oriole's nest I caught ten trout on a dry 

 fly in the afternoon, and saw one of my troop teams win a football cup' 

 in the evening. 



Hoopoes : Mr. Warde Fowler, in a very kind notice of my last 

 article in his " Essays in Br'ief for War Time," has a gentle, crow oven 

 me with regard to the hoopoe. I can now crow back, for I found thei 

 valley of that now famous river the Ancre full of hoopoes and of a mys- 

 terious silent bird which flitted from reed bed to reed bed on one of 

 the marshy ponds so common in the valley, the haunt of great and small 

 reed warblers. The reeds were too thick to get a sight of this bird 

 except when flying and then only for a moment, but after jseveral 

 days of watching, I got my telescope on to a pair apparently courting 

 in the air over the centre of the pond. They were what I; had sus-" 

 pected them to be, little bitterns, and if only I had had a boat I think 

 I could have found the nest. I noticed a strange thing about the reed 

 warbler, a very excellent description of which is given in Mr. Warde 

 Fowler's essays. Though his home is in the reed beds, he repeatedly 

 hunts for food for his younij on the short green grass' of the, paths 

 and the river bank, and hot on the reeds at all. 



The indifference of birds and animals to the noise and horrors- 

 of war is now too well known to be worth writing about, but there 

 are certainly six creatures, all observing a friendly neutrality, which 

 are hiore than indifferent, for they positively revel in the life of' the 

 trenches, and will be heartily sorry when it is over. They are owls,, 

 " Brown," and the " Little," kestrels, rats, mice, and lice. No doubt the 

 rats and mice would be happier still without the birds they have attracted,' 

 but all six have increased beyond measure, and th^ir life is undoubtedly, 

 richer and more luxurious than it ever was in times of peace. On the* 

 Somme battlefield another hawk might often be seen last summer hunting" 



