Bird Notes and News 



87 



red with the blood of nestlings. But for 

 the keeper, it is argued, Magpies would 

 devour eggs and young of the charming 

 song-birds and would become so numerous 

 as to " wipe out our most useful and 

 interesting birds." 



The picture of the keeper as a St. 

 George in velveteens, going about the 

 preserve with gun and gin in order to 

 rescue the innocents from Rook- and 

 Magpie-dragons, is novel and touching ; 

 but as a blind to cover the barbarities 

 of the trap, it is not convincing. It is 

 but an evasive appeal to false sentiment 

 — the species of false sentiment which 

 defends the caging of birds on the ground 

 that the bird-catcher saves them from 



dangers and deaths threatened by nature, 

 and which is ready, as Mr. John Colam 

 was fond of saying, to " set the Almighty 

 right " in very many of His arrange- 

 ments. 



The " humanitarian " keeper who is 

 eager to suppress the Magpie by the aid 

 of the toothed gin, must feel equal need 

 for reform in the way of the Owl with 

 the rat, the Kestrel with the mouse, the 

 Kingfisher with the minnow, the Thrush 

 with the snail, the Tit with the caterpillar. 

 Indeed, it is hard to see where his trap- 

 ping enthusiasm would stop, until, in his 

 zeal to punish inhumanity in nature, he 

 himself stands forth as the arch-priest of 

 inhumane slaughterers. 



Bird-Notes from the Trenches. 



In the midst of the overwhelming horrors 

 of the War, the number of notes on 

 bird-life sent home by soldiers can hardly 

 fail to have been noted by, and to have 

 touched, even the casual reader. If 

 events have not affected migration to 

 this country in the manner anticipated 

 by many ornithologists, still less expected 

 were the many records of birds heard and 

 seen in the war-area and even from the 

 trenches. 



Some of these incidents may well be 

 recorded in Bird Notes and News. 



Blackbird's Nest in a Field-gun. 



The following is an extract from a letter 

 of Private R. H. Pickering, of the H.A.C. of 

 Bedfont : " During the last few days there 

 have been signs of renewed activity. The 

 other night the Huns exploded a mine 

 under a trench to our immediate left and 

 we thought we were going into the air as 

 well, but nothing happened. A strange 

 thing we saw to-day was a blackbird's 

 nest built in the body of a field-gun. There 

 are five eggs in the nest and the bird should 

 start sitting soon, but I don't know how it 



can. An artilleryman told us that they 

 did not fire for about four days, during 

 which time the nest was built and three 

 eggs laid. They have fired each of the 

 three days since then and two more eggs 

 have been laid. He said that last night 

 when the bird came back to her nest they 

 were standing-to and getting the gun ready 

 for action. The bird sat on a bough above 

 and waited till they had finished. It hardly 

 seems credible but the nest is there right 

 enough." — Bucks Advertiser. 



Robin's Nest in a Dug-out. 



A resident in Clifton has received a letter 

 from one of his sons, telling a striking story 

 of a pair of robins in the trenches. This 

 venturesome couple have elected to build 

 their this year's nest in a dug-out, and have 

 hatched five eggs. They further show their 

 sympathy with the Allies by fearlessly 

 accepting food from the hand, and in other 

 ways proving themselves very much at 

 home — " obus " or "no obus." — Keene's 

 Bath Journal. 



A Skylark at Neuve Chapelle. 



A private in the Cameron Highlanders, 

 who was formerly on the commercial staff 



