ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



with the front reared high in air. A large hawk, 

 almost as light colored as a gyrfalcon, was 

 perched on the topmost pedal of one of the cat- 

 erpillar treads, and suddenly I saw it leap into 

 the air, fall over in a most undignified way, 

 catch itself and fly off at full speed. A hollow 

 sound from the interior explained the cause, a 

 sniper having taken up his station there. The 

 noise of his rifle in the hollow tank must have 

 been as terrifying as it was unexpected to the 

 hawk perched just outside. 



My introduction to bird life at the front, came 

 when I was several thousand feet up, and re- 

 passing the front line trenches. I was looking 

 down through my glasses following the undula- 

 tions, the sudden twists and salients of these 

 inconspicuous frontiers of barbarism and civili- 

 zation, when a tiny black speck crossed my field, 

 above the pale grey of low-lying vapor. I took 

 it at first for a trick of tired vision, until it 

 came again from the opposite direction. A quick 

 twist of finger and thumb and the zigzag trench- 

 es blurred from focus and the black spot became 

 distinct and vibrant — a skylark hovering at an 

 amazing height, doubtless in full song. I looked 

 at the compass and down through the crossed 

 hair lines, and realized that it was a German 

 skylark and that I was over temporary Boche- 

 land. 



Few aeroplane pilots or observers recall 

 memories of engine trouble without a shudder, 

 and yet twice I have had most remarkable ex- 

 periences as a result of missing cylinders. The 

 last time I was forced to land in an isolated 

 district of northern France, and was salvaged 

 by an officer whom I had last met in the hinter- 

 land of India. He motored me on my way to- 

 ward the front and promised several surprises, 

 the first of which was fulfilled almost at once. 

 We stopped beyond a little bridge and walked 

 a short distance into a French forest. Within 

 a few minutes we heard a wolf howl, a sound 

 which in modern Europe I had supposed was 

 confined to the wilds of Russia. In several 

 places in France wolves have since been report- 

 ed, hunger driving them down from the more 

 isolated regions where their race still survives. 



Near Verdun, late one evening, when I was 

 looking over the ghastly desert back of Doua- 

 mont — a land of slime-filled shell holes, with 

 half-fallen wooden crosses and the flapping re- 

 mains of old camouflage as the only relief from 

 mud. I was surprised to see a fox creep across 

 a line of irregular mounds which once had been 

 a cozy, picturesque village. 



Back of the lines, in the most miserable 

 marshes and swamps, herons stood disconsolate. 



mudhens crept about, and ducks slithered down 

 into the grassy water. In the centre of the 

 fields, small covies of partridges cowered, or 

 fed timorously: blackbirds called softly in the 

 evening, between the boom and the kr-rump 

 of distant guns. Whether seen from train, mo- 

 tor or aeroplane, the dominant bird-life of 

 France, at least in winter seemed to be the 

 flocks of rooks and crows, feeding in the fields 

 or drifting in their curious massed flight through 

 the air. Rooks were the birds most frequentlv 

 encountered in mid-air. In late afternoon, I 

 once found myself among fifteen or twenty of 

 these birds at a height of forty-five hundred 

 feet. I had not seen them until I was close, 

 and they too were evidently surprised, as before 

 I could dip and pass beneath and beyond them, 

 several had been thrown wholly out of control 

 by the suction of the propeller blades, rolling 

 helplessly over and over, and only catching 

 themselves when beyond the vibrations of this 

 aerial maelstrom. There was certainly oppor- 

 tunity for gossip in one rookery of France that 

 night, concerning the adventure which befell a 

 mile above the earth. 



The trim magpies of France, singly or in 

 pairs, will always be associated with the ruined 

 villages, the long straight roads lined with pop- 

 lars, and the winter tilling of the fields. Their 

 nests were difficult to distinguish from the 

 bunches of mistletoe swung among the leafless 

 branches, and they too were making themselves 

 at home among the fresh ruins of farm-houses 

 and erstwhile village streets. 



I once lay flat in a trench looking up at a 

 small wood, where a steady stream of machine 

 gun bullets was hissing past, showering down a 

 continuous rain of twigs, splinters and occasion- 

 ally sprigs of mistletoe. Every five minutes a 

 shell of some kind or another would rip off a 

 branch., or bury itself in the earth; if a dud, to 

 die with a single thud, or if fulfilling its des- 

 tiny to explode and send a shower of roots, 

 mold and splinters in every direction. If twen- 

 ty sportsmen were seated in this small patch of 

 woodland, shooting continuously and regardless 

 of direction, the noise and disturbance could 

 not have been greater, yet a party of three great 

 titmice, a small woodpecker, a jay and a pair of 

 wood pigeons came now and then within my 

 field of vision, on the alert, obviously disturbed, 

 but showing no inclination to cease feeding and 

 escape at headlong speed, which would have 

 been the instant reaction of any birds unused to 

 this volcanic part of the world. 



In the Tuilieres Gardens in Paris, at mid- 

 night, at the height of the January raid. I saw 



