Behaviour of Birds 



2.iii.i6). On May isth, 1915, at 3 a.m. in 

 the garden of a chateau a NIGHTINGALE 

 began to sing ; half an hour afterwards 

 German shells were rained upon the garden 

 incessantly throughout the day. The bird 

 sang without a pause where the shells fell 

 thickest until mid-day, and survived, for next 

 morning he started again as cheerily as ever 

 (Times, 2.iii.i6). A wiring party, forced to 

 seek refuge in their front-line trench by a 

 sharp burst of artillery fire lasting five min- 

 utes, were surprised, ten minutes after, to 

 hear the sweet song of a NIGHTINGALE in an 

 adj oining coppice ( Scotsman, 1 6 . vi . 1 7) . Dur- 

 ing one of our most furious artillery duels a 

 NIGHTINGALE sang gaily from the shelter of a 

 dwarfed hawthorn, his song sounding strange 

 and eerie between the violent cannonading 

 from our guns. Yet, in spite of the deafening 

 uproar, he never paused in his singing until 

 the dawn came up, lurid and sullen, over the 

 eastern horizon, and the rain descended in 

 torrents. Later on, his mate was found to 

 have a nest in the hawthorn, and was sitting 

 upon her eggs, apparently unmoved by the 



112 



