ssion in the surface of the country, for a
good many people in other parts of the town, particularly where the
windows had been closed, were not greatly inconvenienced by it.

The gas was strong enough to kill all the young foliage of the roses
and other plants in our garden, while closer to the front a number of
horses were poisoned by it. Several hundred soldiers of British
regiments were gassed and the Germans, under cover of the gas cloud,
raided the British trenches in an endeavour to locate and blow up
certain mine shafts. That they did not succeed was shown recently when
these same mines on the Wytschaete ridge blew both Germans and
trenches far on the way towards the eternal stars.

Other gas attacks launched by the Germans the same night failed to
achieve any results; and in one section they managed to gas themselves
badly. We reported the gas to be chlorine, and the post mortems of
gassed soldiers carried out by Major Rankin, blood tests by myself to
exclude other possibilities, and evidence obtained elsewhere, all
indicated that the gas employed had been chlorine.

The New Zealand division which had come into our area, held the line
in front of Armentieres. A small epidemic of suspected dysentery in
that division took us through that town frequently, and we found it
almost completely deserted. The Huns shelled it almost daily and had
made the place almost untenable for civilians, though, as usual, a
number of them hung on and did a fairly good business.

The staff of our laboratory had been reduced from three officers to
two, and after a good deal of discussion, Major Rankin dropped out at
his own earnest request and was detailed to the Canadian Corps to
train for the position of D.A.D.M.S. To celebrate the occasion he gave
us a little dinner, and invested heavily in nectarines, strawberries
and peaches from the graperies. The occasion was only slightly marred
by the popping cork of a champagne bottle crashing through a skylight
and bringing down a shower of glass on the Cap.'s head, which bled
profusely.

One evening after dinner as we sat with French windows opened wide to
the warm evening air of late spring, puffing idly at our cigars, a
most beautiful bird song burst upon our ears--a song that made us
stare at one another in amazement; we had never heard its like before.
It might be described as a bird fantasia--the notes covered a wide
range of sounds and the effect was beautiful. Captain Ellis walk