Bird Notes and News 



89 



turn and perch again to chatter about it, 

 until they had picked up courage to make 

 another try, and then the same thing would 

 happen all over again." 



Soldier and Bird-Student. 



The Spectator (May 29) publishes a letter 

 from a young soldier " somewhere in 

 France," to his mother in England : — • 



" I saw a flycatcher here this afternoon, 

 pretty little chap. ... I have only seen 

 one bullfinch but heard several. This place 

 is full of nightingales. I have got one nest 

 within four or five yards, but it is in a 

 blackthorn thicket. My searches have so 

 far disclosed a magpie's nest with nine eggs. 

 One I tried to blow, but it was too far 

 advanced and smashed, so I have hopes of 

 a tame one in about ten days' time. I have 

 found heaps of blackbirds' and thrushes' 

 nests. One lovely little nest roofed in blue 

 feathers but not yet working ; I think a 

 tit's of some kind. I saw swallows here 

 last Monday. Thursday afternoon I saw 

 two cuckoos for the first time this year : 

 also a pair of ravens. I think they are not 

 nesting here but farther afield. Would you 

 look up ' Morris ' for any likely spots for 

 yellowharmners' nests ? I have tramped 

 through lots of gorse and crawled in banks 

 and can't find one at all. I was so surprised 

 the other day sitting in my room reading 

 to hear a noise like a cat having its tail 

 trodden on. I got my glasses (guessing it 

 was a bird) and hunted the tree-tops outside 

 the window carefully, and finally spotted a 

 big bird nearly the size of a jackdaw, 

 certainly as big as a jay, almost completely 

 yellow, with long beak and some black on 

 the wings and tail. I have heard it since 

 but not seen it, and must put it down as a 

 golden oriole. The bird was right on top 

 of a tall beech tree, and remained about 

 three minutes and flew off. I revisited the 

 small closed-in nest made of moss I found 

 ten days ago in a furze patch, and it is now 

 feather-lined and contains eight eggs, white, 

 with, at the large end, rust-red spots fairly 

 sprinkled and but a few towards the other 

 end. It may be a tit of some kind ; not a 

 long-tailed tit as there is no lichen on the 

 nest." 



Birds and Man. 



M. Louis Ternier writes in the Bulletin 

 of the Societe Nationale d'Aoclimatation 

 de France (May, 1915), on the remarkable 

 tameness last winter of the migratory 

 game-birds. Winter immigrants, he 

 observes, have usually a tendency to 

 familiarity with man, especially birds 

 of the water and marsh who are born far 

 from the haunts of man, and therefore 

 are not experienced, like the resident 

 birds, in the need of avoiding such 

 familiarity. The absence of shooting 

 during the past winter rendered them 

 extraordinarily tame. 



" The Curlews, so wild in ordinary times, 

 allowed one to approach within several feet 

 and even stood before me. They would 

 pick about on the sand, almost close to the 

 feet of the sentinel of a military post on the 

 coast. The Sandpipers, Plovers, and other 

 little Waders flew away only when forced, 

 so to speak, and settled not far away. As 

 for the Wild Ducks and the Teal, on the 

 alluvial borders of the Basse-Seine, they 

 raised themselves from the pools, where they 

 alighted in broad day, so near to any visitors 

 that they could have been killed by throwing 

 a stick at them. On a marsh of which I have 

 the shooting, and which has not been shot 

 since the war, the Wild Ducks seem no more 

 wild than the domestic ones. They strolled 

 away tranquilly, without hurrying them- 

 selves, before those who pretended to wish 

 to approach to take them." 



On the other hand, the non-migratory 

 birds have appeared as wild as ever. 



" The great familiarity of the birds of 

 passage, at the end of the year 1914, is 

 indisputable and seems to me to confirm the 

 assertion of Toussenel, who maintained 

 that the bird desires only to ally himself 

 with man. 



" Unhappily man has decided otherwise. 

 Sad to say, it is only when we are at war 

 with our own race that we consent to make 

 peace with the birds." 



