Conclusion 
tific ranks have been a@fheavy asourown. If 
the outcome of this—the world’s greatest War 
—is to be a permanent Peace, it will be as 
welcome to scientists as to mankind in gene- 
ral: science can only pursue her course 
by a mutual and international exchange of 
thought and must always conserve an atti- 
tude of mind abhorrent to such brutal acts 
as wars. Nature, it is true, is at times 
cruel; we human beings, who are only her 
creatures, but endowed with generations of 
education, should strive, puny though our 
efforts may be, to eliminate her cruelties and 
cultivate her beauties until she becomes 
sublime. 
We have seen that the birds were indif- 
ferent to the noise of battle, and that migra- 
tion went on uninterrupted by the struggle 
of mankind. The greeting card of the Royal 
Society for the Protection of Birds, issued at 
Christmas I9QI7, was a picture of a ROBIN 
sitting on a snow-wreathed identification 
cross behind the lines; the following verses, 
which accompanied the picture, form a fitting 
ending to these Notes on Birds and the War: 
168 
