Birds on the Western Front 
and built in the military huts constructed 
against the battered walls (Bird Notes and 
News, vol. vi. p. 101). SWALLOWs often 
nested in billets, and a pair placed their nest 
and reared their brood in a room used as a 
field dressing-station (Scotsman, 25.vii.17). 
Another pair built their nest in an ‘‘ Arm- 
strong hut ’’ only sixty or seventy yards from 
a battery of 6-inch howitzers, which fired 
at intervals of about three minutes or less 
throughout the day, and on special occasions 
all night long. With each discharge the air 
concussion, quite apart from the crash of the 
report, caused the hut to rock, indeed almost 
to jump (Scotsman, 30.vi.17). SWALLOWS 
did not desert their broods in an outhouse 
when a shell took off the greater part of the 
roof, and before the day was over they were 
using the shell-holes as a convenient entrance 
through which to pass backwards and for- 
wards with food for their young (Bird Notes 
and News, vol. vii. p. 44). A SWALLOW’s 
nest with five eggs was found in a German 
dug-out, about 64 feet from the floor. Every 
chimney, house, and shed had been levelled 
117 
