Conclusion 



tific ranks have been as heavy as our own. If 

 the outcome of this the world's greatest War 

 Is to be a permanent Peace, it will be as 

 welcome to scientists as to mankind in gene- 

 ral: science can only pursue her course 

 by a mutual and international exchange of 

 thought and must always conserve an atti- 

 tude of mind abhorrent to such brutal acts 

 as wars. Nature, it is true, is at times 

 cruel ; we human beings, who are only her 

 creatures, but endowed with generations of 

 education, should strive, puny though our 

 efforts may be, to eliminate her cruelties and 

 cultivate her beauties until she becomes 

 sublime. 



We have seen that the birds were indif- 

 ferent to the noise of battle, and that migra- 

 tion went on uninterrupted by the struggle 

 of mankind. The greeting card of the Royal 

 Society for the Protection of Birds, issued at 

 Christmas 1917, was a picture of a ROBIN 

 sitting on a snow-wreathed identification 

 cross behind the lines ; the following verses, 

 which accompanied the picture, form a fitting 

 ending to these Notes on Birds and the War : 



168 



