DECREASE OF ANIMAL LIFE 379 



The least observant must have noticed the hordes of 

 Moths and Beetles which on warm autumn evenings, dash 

 madly around the electric lights in city streets sometimes 

 even attracting Bats to the feast ; and the proverbial 

 "singed moth" that "dreads the flame," commemorates the 

 death of myriads of relatives which succumb to the fatal 

 attraction of artificial light, sometimes in such numbers as 

 to choke the oil lamp over the chimney of which they have 

 passed in their madness. 



RAILWAYS AND TELEGRAPH WIRES 



Most wild animals are exceedingly sensitive to sounds: 

 a commotion amongst the Pheasants of East Norfolk 

 and other parts of England was caused by the noises of 

 the Jutland battle and by the great munitions explosion in 

 the East End of London in the spring of 1917, which 

 aroused the game-birds some 40 seconds before the sound 

 could be detected by human ears. Can one doubt, then, 

 that the railways which interlace with a network the busy 

 centres of industry, and penetrate the moorland and 

 mountain fastnesses with long lines of bustle and noise, 

 have helped to drive some lovers of peace and solitude to 

 seek new homes? Telegraph wires, though they supply new 

 roosting-places for myriads of Swallows before the autumn 

 migration, cause such mortality amongst heavy-flying game- 

 birds that special means have to be taken to show their 

 presence over wide stretches of moorland. Even birds of 

 active flight frequently come to grief upon the wires. In 

 December 1906, near Innerwick, a large flock of Golden 

 Plover was observed to fly before a strong wind against 

 telegraph wires, seventeen in number, with the result that 

 thirty-one of the birds were killed. 



RIVER BARRIERS AND FISHERIES 



In rivers as well as on land, the advances of civili- 

 zation have told hardly upon the original inhabitants. The 

 erection of mills for the manufacture of woollen and linen 

 cloth, of flour, meal and paper, and the construction of 

 dams ,to obtain the necessary " head " of water to drive 

 the machinery, have given rise on almost every stream to 

 barriers which have interfered with the free passage of the 



