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Dr. Bernard E. Potter,



searching for our well-concealed battery, the birds went on their own

way. Kingfishers were also to be seen. On one occasion it was

a curious contrast to hear a robin singing while the guns were

firing and creating a great din. But one day, almost the last one

permissible in that doomed city, I disturbed a cowering cock pheasant

in the undergrowth, this bird had evidently flown from the country

over the moat to escape the guns.


Nightingales are very common as with us round London,

but perhaps I have had more leisure to observe them.


Blackbirds have sung lustily all the months we have been in

Flanders : in one camp every morning above my tent I heard a per¬

sistent warbler, but like the Editor,who is surrounded by birds in the

moat, I am not disturbed at night or early morning by their voices.


It has always seemed curious to me that I have hardly

heard any thrushes at all in song ; whereas I have notes at home

to prove that hardly a month of the year passes but they can be

heard in Hyde Park.


Magpies are very numerous over here ; especially have I

seen them along the now famous Ypres Canal on the way towards

Boesinghe to the north. This broad canal has very high banks,

along which is a fringe of lofty black poplars. In the heights of

these trees the deeply made nests are plainly visible. One day in

the trees I counted as many as eighteen birds, and near by on the

ground twenty-four on another occasion. To see such numbers

seems to me phenomenal, for one generally thinks of these birds

as being solitary in habits rather than gregarious. Among the

Flemish they have a bad name as noted pilferers. In the spring

they arrive in large flocks and alight upon the fields to eat up

the newly-sown grain. In the autumn they fly southward to

escape the winter. In their flight the people tell me they form

the shape of letter M with one bird in advance who is called the

king. Perhaps if the war still lasts I may be able to verify this.


While in camp before Christmas at Maresfield Park, Sussex,

I was greatly interested one day to observe black and grey birds

which were new to me, but one recognised that they must be

hooded crows. However, on reaching the neighbourhood of Ypres

I at once found these birds to be quite numerous, and there have



