Behaviour of Birds 
Crow, but facts proved these expectations 
to be entirely wrong. In autumn and winter 
bird life is never so assertive as in spring 
and summer, and it is therefore natural that 
in the earlier months of the first year of the 
War observations on birds should have been 
comparatively few. We have also to picture 
a landscape of shattered trees, and the ground 
so torn up by shells that there scarcely re- 
mained a single blade of grass (Ibis, 1917, 
p. 528), truly an unattractive spot for any 
species of resident birds. With the return 
of spring in 1915, however, the increasing 
number of birds became a subject for com- 
ment in many a letter home, and as one 
writer put it: ‘‘ He was a cynic who said 
even the birds are birds of prey ’’ (Scotsman, 
25.11.16). With the approach of summer 
an extraordinary plant growth was reported, 
doubtless due to the complete pulverisation 
of the soil by mines and shell explosions and 
to the large quantities of nitrates and potash 
released from the explosives themselves. 
Coltsfoot and lesser celandine in spring had 
made stars of gold of old shell-holes of the 
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