Page 3 Advertisements Column 5

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9719, 23 July 1917, Page 3

Professor Darwin and Dr Wallace ■would both have been interested in a letter received about bird life on the Western front from a soldier serving in the trenches. ‘Won know,” he writes, “1 am something of a naturelover, and in particular a modest student of bird-life. Well, I hare been carefully studying the birds in this war-stricken area, and, bear in mind, it is a region whore war has reigned fiercely, bin almost static, for nearly three "years. A’ow. 1 find time and again, that certain birds, whoso mimicry is well developed and recognised, are consistently and very cleverly imitating the sound of whistling shells and bullets. It is a positive fact. More than once or twice—dozens of times —scores of times—l have heard birds reproduce the familiar whistle of a light shell or bullet, and do it so accurately that I have sometimes been deceived. The note is certainly not one that was in the birds repertory before the war. The shells do not imitate the birds. The birds are imitating the shells. I notice that particular birds are adepts at the game, and that this mimicry is usually stimulated bv hearing the actual thing. A shell, or a fragment of a shell, sings it.s curious note overhead. And almost at once some bird imitates the sound, reproducing it with often exact fidelity. - " The Tmropaan War of ISS3-1597 laslrd much I or. Kir than Ibo present conflict is likely, ro last. and. speaking relatively, --;t math more dearly all parties concerned.