Effect of Air-raids and Air-craft 



Naturalist, 1917, p. 140). The Zeppelin raids, 

 a feature of the War early in 1915, were nearly 

 always heralded in this country by the crow- 

 ing of PHEASANTS, and the sensitiveness of 

 this species to distant sounds was frequently 

 a subject of comment. There seems no 

 reason to suppose that PHEASANTS have 

 keener powers of hearing than men ; it 

 appears more probable that these birds are 

 alarmed by the sudden quivering of the trees, 

 on which they happen to be perched, at the 

 time of an explosion (Proc. Roy. Soc. Edin., 

 vol. xxxviii. p. 125). It was said that when 

 PHEASANTS began to talk the airman got 

 ready to fly and the anti-aircraft gunner 

 turned out. The crowing of PHEASANTS 

 often preceded by fifteen minutes to half an 

 hour the approach of hostile aircraft (Daily 

 Mail, i.ii.iS). During the first Zeppelin 

 raid in January 1915, PHEASANTS at Thet- 

 ford and Bury St. Edmunds, thirty-five to 

 forty miles from the area over which the 

 Zeppelins flew, shrieked themselves hoarse 

 (Daily Mail, i.ii.iS). In one of the early 

 battles in the North Sea, PHEASANTS as far 



85 



