Sufferings of Birds 
with aeroplanes ; Faroe of their own 
safety, however, and not from their love of 
birds, airmen tried to give as wide a berth 
as possible to any flocks of birds they hap- 
pened to overtake or meet. An EAGLE is re- 
ported to have been overtaken and entrapped 
in the wires of a French aeroplane nearly 
5,000° feet above the earth in Macedonia 
(Daily Express, 18.v.18), but the propeller 
of an aeroplane is well known to be extremely 
fragile. I have been assured that on one 
occasion an airman narrowly escaped with 
his life, the propeller of his machine having 
been broken by coming into contact with a 
soaring LARK. One is reminded of the story 
of George Stephenson and the cow, whose 
fate, it will be remembered, he did not expect 
would be shared by the driver of the loco- 
motive. 
The effect of searchlights on GULLS has 
been described as soporific(? hypnotic) ; inthis 
case it would seem that they rest in the steady 
beam much as migrating birds rest in the 
light of the lantern on lighthouse bird-rests. 
Another observer, however, states that the 
94 
