ii CHANGE OF HABIT IN BIRDS 

 DUE TO THE WAR 



I AM not aware of any change of habit in 

 birds actually due to the War, unless 

 indeed their supreme indifference to the 

 noise of battle may be so described. SWAL- 

 LOWS are reported to have built freely in 

 trees in France when all buildings had been 

 levelled. An eye-witness described a poplar 

 tree, which had escaped being cut down by 

 the Germans in their retreat, in which there 

 were at least half a dozen nests, the lowest 

 being about 10 feet from the ground and 

 others wherever the birds could get a lodg- 

 ment (Scottish Naturalist, 1918, p. 21). The 

 occurrence of such nests is not unknown 

 (British Birds Magazine, vol. v. p. 143), though 

 this is the first occasion, as far as I know, that 

 trees have been freely (I can hardy say 

 habitually) used by SWALLOWS for nidifica- 

 tion. MAGPIES, in parts of Somme where 



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