11—CHANGE OF HABIT IN BIRDS 
DUE TO THE WAR 
AM not aware of any change of habit in 
| birds actually due to the War, unless 
indeed their supreme indifference to the 
noise of battle may be so described. SWaAL- 
LOWS are reported to have built freely in 
trees in France when all buildings had been 
levelled. An eye-witness described a poplar 
tree, which had escaped being cut down by 
the Germans in their retreat, in which there 
were at least half a dozen nests, the lowest 
being about 10 feet from the ground and 
others wherever the birds could get a lodg- 
ment (Scottish Naturalist, 1918, p. 21). The 
occurrence of such nests is not unknown 
(British Birds Magazine, vol. v. p. 143), though 
this is the first occasion, as far as I know, that 
trees have been freely (I can hardy say 
habitually) used by SwALLows for nidifica- 
tion. MAGPIEs, in parts of Somme where 
154 
