CHAPTER VIII 



IN THE TIME OF FLOODS 



IN England it is, as a rule, only the wild animals 

 whose happiness and even lives are really dependent 

 on the weather, but during torrential rains and summer 

 floods the injury and destruction caused among 

 domestic birds and beasts is often very considerable. 

 For instance, during the second week of June 1903 

 some ten thousand homing pigeons were let loose on 

 the south coast to fly home to various places mainly 

 in London and the Midlands. They flew right into 

 the heaviest continuous rainstorm of the last forty 

 years. Two days later it was reported that nearly 

 all these birds were lost, having failed to find their 

 way home. At the same time the swallows, martins, 

 and most of all the swifts, were gradually starving, 

 as well as suffering from the cold and wet, through- 

 out the days of downpour. The continuous heavy 

 rain washed all the insects out of the air. After 

 the first twenty-four hours there was no food left for 

 the swallow tribe at all. The swifts, as a last resort, 

 came down to the houses, flying round the eaves to 

 see if a few gnats remained under the shelter of their 

 projections. Their extraordinary powers of flight 



enabled them to keep up their ceaseless ranging of 



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