Behaviour of Birds 



thickly that they almost roof over the trench. 

 In the neglected gardens of the ruined houses 

 the flowers still bloom. The birds are every- 

 where " (Globe, I4.vii.i6). Indeed, it ap- 

 pears that birds were possibly more numerous 

 in Northern France and Flanders than before 

 the War, and " No-man's-land " proved an 

 attractive place, in spite of the noise and all 

 the dangers of artillery fire, for thousands of 

 birds to nest and rear their young (H. Tho- 

 burn Clarke, in The English Review, March 

 1918). Nor must it be forgotten that the 

 abnormal quantity of insects doubtless formed 

 an attraction to insectivorous birds, and this 

 was particularly noticed as regards SWALLOWS, 

 MARTINS, and SWIFTS (Country Life, j.x.i6, 

 p. 399). An observer, in the neighbourhood 

 of Peronne, writes in September 1918 that 

 the battlefields were so close that an evening 

 stroll brought one to places desolate enough 

 to make one wonder whether life of any sort 

 could still exist, but the very desolation 

 seemed to have its attraction, and in the 

 course of a few weeks it was possible to count 

 nearly sixty different varieties of birds within 



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