l
noise of guns and shells. So far as I could notice they did not pay
the slightest attention to it. Pheasants, partridges and rabbits were
numerous at one point in and behind our lines and I have seen them
running about, feeding or playing where shells were falling and
bursting all about them, without showing any sign of fear. Indeed
they were sometimes killed by the shells, especially shrapnel, but
those unhit would "carry on" with the business in hand, indifferent to
the fate of their companions.

The little robin redbreasts (the English robin and the French
_rouge-gorge_) were abundant, as were the ubiquitous English sparrows,
which, sitting out in front on the barbed wire, were often used as
targets by men firing experimental shots.

A pair of swallows reared a family of young in a dug-out which I once
occupied, the nest being within a few feet of my head when I was in my
bunk. They would come in and go out through a small hole which we left
in the burlap curtain and the old bird would sit on the nest and look
at me in such a confidential, unafraid sort of way that she made a
friend for life and I would have fought any one who had attempted to
disturb or injure her. But, of course, no such thing was possible. All
the men seemed to take a kindly interest in the birds and, except for
the occasional shot at the English sparrows (which never hit them,
anyhow), they rarely, if ever, molested any of them unless it was for
the purpose of getting a meal of pheasant or partridge, which was
considered perfectly legitimate although forbidden by "orders." It was
all right if you could "get away with it," as the saying is. One
morning, after an unusually intense bombardment of a wood called the
Bois Carre, I found many dead birds; killed either by direct hits or
by the concussion of the heavy shells. This same morning I watched a
pair of magpies who were building a nest in a tree near our station. A
shell had struck the tree, below the nest, and had cut it in half
while a large branch had lodged just above the nest. The whole thing
was swaying dangerously in the light breeze and a strong wind would
surely bring it down, but that pair of chattering magpies appeared to
be debating whether to continue their work or move elsewhere. One
would hop down to the place where the shell had hit and, cocking his
head this way and that, would let loose a flow of magpie talk that
would bring his mate to him and then they would both investig