At Home with Wild Nature 



and individual birds have been killed by flying into the 

 wheels of bicycles in motion, colliding with golf balls, 

 and in one case even with a cricket ball. 



No wild bird can understand the properties of glass. 

 Great numbers belonging to different species and 

 ranging in size from a pheasant to a tomtit have been 

 killed by flying against the windows of country houses. 

 If a room should happen to be lighted by windows 

 facing each other, or have a large mirror standing oppo- 

 site a window and thus reflecting the view outside, birds 

 are particularly liable to be deceived into thinking there 

 is a way through, and disaster overtakes them. I know 

 a country house in the neighbourhood of London 

 possessing a window that brought grief to so many birds 

 that its humane owner had it covered with wire netting. 



As an example of the slight mental impression an 

 accident will make upon some birds I will relate; an ex- 

 periment I carried out one day upon a blue tit. The 

 bird was busily engaged in consuming some food I had 

 provided, when a kestrel suddenly appeared over the 

 brow of a hill sixty to eighty yards behind my house 

 and began to hover. Directly the tit caught sight of 

 the hawk it appeared to be terror-stricken, dashed 

 straight at the window through which I was watching, 

 and, striking the glass, fell to the ground unconscious. 

 I picked it up and carried it indoors. In a few minutes 

 it regained its senses, and seemed little the worse for its 

 accident. With a view to finding cut what effect the 

 unpleasant experience had made upon its nerves, I 

 smeared some vermilion oil paint on the crown of its 



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