Behaviour of Birds 



such a sprinkling of poison gas that the men 

 were compelled, as the air was heavily charged 

 with gas-fumes, to wear their respirators. To 

 their amazement a NIGHTINGALE burst into 

 song in the very wood in which they were 

 halted (Observer, 19.1.19). An eye-witness 

 speaks of a NIGHTINGALE which sang his 

 spring song of passion in the derelict garden 

 of a shattered nunnery while shells shrieked 

 overhead (Daily Mail, g.v.iy); and another 

 observer writes : " The song of the NIGHT- 

 INGALE seemed to come all the more sweetly 

 and clearly in the quiet intervals between 

 the bursts of firing. There was something 

 infinitely sweet and sad about it, as if the 

 countryside were singing gently to itself in 

 the midst of all our noise and confusion and 

 muddy work ; so that you felt the NIGHTIN- 

 GALE'S song was the only real thing which 

 would remain when all the rest was long past 

 and forgotten. It is such an old song too, 

 handed on from NIGHTINGALE to NIGHTINGALE 

 through the summer nights of so many in- 

 numerable years " (Bird Notes and News, 

 vol. vii. p. 14). 



114 



