Behaviour of Birds 
‘‘A BLACKBIRD has # nest with four eggs in 
it in that hole; but I haven’t told anyone ; 
they might disturb the bird’”’ (Daily Mail, 
23.v.16). When the hospital ship Llan- 
dovery Castle was torpedoed in June 1918, 
the second officer returned to the sinking 
vessel in order to save his pet CANARY (Daily 
Sketch, 3.vii.18). It is recorded of the late 
Lord Lucas that, on seeing a pair of MARSH 
HARRIERS circling round their nest on his 
Whittlesea property, he exclaimed to his 
gamekeeper : ‘“‘ What a sight! probably the 
only pair breeding in the British Isles. This 
is the next great thing to the War!” (Bird 
Notes and News, vol. vii. p. 69). A Scottish 
miner, shortly afterwards killed on the Wes- 
tern front, told a friend: ‘‘ If it weren’t for 
the birds, what a hell it would be! I watch 
them singing, and something comes into my 
throat that makes me almost greet ’’? (Dum- 
fries and Galloway Standard, 7.viii.18). 
Surely ‘‘a master bias . . . to gentle scenes ”’ 
predominated, as in the Happy Warrior, 
among our fighting men. 
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