Preface 



with appropriate paintings thereon, to be 

 sold for the benefit of the Belgian Relief 

 Fund at is. and 2s. 6d. each. Nor have I 

 mentioned cases in which spies carried on 

 apparently harmless correspondence, using 

 the names of birds, fish, and animals to de- 

 note airships, submarines, and other engines of 

 war. Again birds figured largely in the car- 

 toons which appeared from time to time in the 

 comic papers. They played their part also 

 in the auctions which were held throughout 

 the country on behalf of "war charities"; 

 in August 1918 it was announced that the 

 famous Warboys (Huntingdonshire) COCKEREL 

 had raised 12,762 for the Red Cross. In 

 three years he had travelled 17,300 miles, had 

 been sold 10,960 times, and had made close 

 on fifty times his weight in gold (Daily Ex- 

 press, 3O.viii.i8). Naturally the war caused 

 no little stir in our scientific societies, in 

 which there was bound to be a proportion of 

 alien, if not enemy, members, and it may 

 safely be said that no society took up this 

 question more hotly than the British Ornith- 

 ologists' Union ; the annual general meetings 



ix 



