Effect of Air-raids and Air-craft 
lustily, and it was not until the aircraft were 
right over head that they ceased, not to com- 
mence their song again till about 2.30 a.m., 
when the whirring of the seaplanes had faded 
into a distant hum. The NIGHTINGALES’ 
reiterated song seemed like a choral defiance 
to the Huns and was swelled by countless 
other little British songsters, together with a 
Cuckoo, who added a jeering call to the re- 
treating enemy alien who so closely resembled 
that parasitic avian intruder into homes not 
his own (Observer, 28.v.16). Air-craft, how- 
ever, do not seem, on the whole, to have had 
much effect on birds, and SKYLARKS have 
often been seen singing unconcernedly around 
aeroplanes and airships in the sky. Mr. 
Charles Dixon, writing of the daylight raid 
on London on July 7th, 1917, when a fleet 
of twenty ‘‘ Taubes’’ appeared like magic 
in a sun-bathed sky, states that the effect 
on bird life was practically nil. Although 
many German machines passed over him and 
gun fire was incessant for nearly two hours, 
he noticed that THRUSHES were singing on 
and off throughout the raid period, while 
87 
