BIRDS IN THE FIRING LINE.
[To TIM EDITOR OF TEE "SPILOTATOIL."]
SIB,—I read with interest your correspondent's letter entitled
Animal Life in the Firing Line" (Spectator, June 19th). I am glad that he too has seen poor pussy wandering about in the trenches. I have seen one or two of these homeless animals, who doubtless come in search of a quadruped which abounds here, but which " Viator" omitted to mention, either ae being beneath notice, or through fear of the Censor—I mean the rat. These animals attain to huge proportions, and the rank-and-file, when writing home, very often describe them as being "as big as donkeys." Puss takes her risks in the trenches cheerfully and with great sang-froid, doubtless train- ing for the promised encounter with the Kaiser's cats and dogs. One of our cats was quite content to sit on a. brother- officer's lap and purr to us in our dug-out. Your corre- spondent's remark that there are no birds in the firing line reminds me of Virgil's derivation of the name "Avernus," and although the firing line may sometimes resemble "hell let loose," I cannot agree with him as to the absence of birds. In the No-man's-land between us and the hostile sandbags I have often stumbled over a partridge scuttling through the long clover to get away from the barbed wire which I was putting out. Again, one of our sergeants, no mean sniper, put a heron out of action when on the wing; unfortunately it fell in the German lines. At dawn the larks soar up for us from No-man's-land just as they soared up for Shelley, and the cuckoo in his day did not leave ns without his message from England's woodlands. " Viator " mentions pigeons. My servant caught one for me one day. Yes, "the desolation of death is supreme." . . . I ate bim.—I am, Sir, &c.,
J. M. G., Lieut.
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