CHANGE OF HABITS IN ANIMALS 405 



and adults falling from a cracked ceiling above which the 

 main breeding-place lay." There are also the Crickets of 

 the Hearth (Gryllus domesticus], and the Cockroach (Blatta 

 orientalis), both of which shall be referred to in another 

 connection; and last in our perfunctory list, but not 

 least, the Common House Mouse (Mus musculus), which 

 has forsaken the fields for the comforts of domesticity. The 

 dwellings of man have induced in all of these a new habit of 

 life. 



THE INFLUENCE OF TOWNS 



In a variety of ways towns seem to have told upon the 

 habits of some creatures, and especially of birds. True, they 

 have driven many a bird from its old haunts, for the 

 migrants dare not penetrate the smoke cloud which veils 

 our busy cities; but in other birds town life has bred a 

 boldness of character which one is not accustomed to asso- 

 ciate with their wild natures. Not so long ago the Rook 

 was accounted one of the wariest of birds, so shy that a 

 single Rook sitting upon a house-top was considered a sure 

 portent of death amongst the inmates. Yet many Rooks 

 have taken to city life. In Cheltenham a rookery lines one 

 of the main streets. In the heart of Edinburgh there are 

 rookeries, in one of which I counted over 100 birds in the 

 autumn of 1917; and even busy London prides itself on 

 their abundance within its boundaries. In some places the 

 Raven is losing its dread of man, and is returning from the 

 cliffs of the wilds to live nearer the centres of habitation, for, 

 writes "Cheviot" in The Field of 2oth May 1917, 



there is a tribe of him that nests year by year nearer the towns and in the 

 suburbs, where he has found he can live foully on live and dead out of 

 reach of the game-keeping gun, and where his long-drawn and savage 

 krar'! krar'! sounds strangely close to open windows and the quiet of garden 

 trees. 



So the Raven returns to its old trade of town scavenger 

 a trade long lost and entirely forgotten during ages of per- 

 secution. 



The House Sparrow is a bold bird, but contact with the 

 bustle of business removes its last traces of shyness, and 

 "with the size and activity of the city its familiarity and 

 impudence increase. Other birds, once banished before the 



