Behaviour of Birds 
a a a 
thickly that they almost roof over the trench. 
In the neglected gardens of the ruined houses 
the flowers still bloom. The birds are every- 
where’”’ (Globe, 14.vii.16). Indeed, it ap- 
pears that birds were possibly more numerous 
in Northern France and Flanders than before 
the War, and ‘‘ No-man’s-land’’ proved an 
attractive place, in spite of the noise and all 
the dangers of artillery fire, for thousands of 
birds to nest and rear their young (H. Tho- 
burn Clarke, in The English Review, March 
r918). Nor must it be forgotten that the 
abnormal quantity of insects doubtless formed 
an attraction to insectivorous birds, and this 
was particularly noticed as regards SWALLOws, 
MARTINS, and SwIFTs (Country Life, 7.x.16, 
p. 399). An observer, in the neighbourhood 
of Péronne, writes in September 1918 that 
the battlefields were so close that an evening 
stroll brought one to places desolate enough 
to make one wonder whether life of any sort 
could still exist, but the very desolation 
seemed to have its attraction, and in the 
course of a few weeks it was possible to count 
nearly sixty different varieties of birds within 
104 
