Behaviour of Birds 



CROW, but facts proved these expectations 

 to be entirely wrong. In autumn and winter 

 bird life is never so assertive as in spring 

 and summer, and it is therefore natural that 

 in the earlier months of the first year of the 

 War observations on birds should have been 

 comparatively few. We have also to picture 

 a landscape of shattered trees, and the ground 

 so torn up by shells that there scarcely re- 

 mained a single blade of grass (Ibis, 1917, 

 p. 528), truly an unattractive spot for any 

 species of resident birds. With the return 

 of spring in 1915, however, the increasing 

 number of birds became a subject for com- 

 ment in many a letter home, and as one 

 writer put it : " He was a cynic who said 

 even the birds are birds of prey " (Scotsman, 

 25.iii.i6). With the approach of summer 

 an extraordinary plant growth was reported, 

 doubtless due to the complete pulverisation 

 of the soil by mines and shell explosions and 

 to the large quantities of nitrates and potash 

 released from the explosives themselves. 

 Coltsfoot and lesser celandine in spring had 

 made stars of gold of old shell-holes of the 



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