25 OCTOBER 1935, Page 17

Benighted Birds

Birds have suffered, as well as trees ; and some rare sea birds have been seen for the first time far inland ; but light- house keepers (who see more of migrant birds than other people) find that the wind is much less dangerous to the bird than mist. It is in thick weather that the lighthouses are beset by birds big and little. It is then that the perches set up by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds prove most useful. The value of these at the lighthouse by Beachy Head is emphasised in a very charming regular feature of the Sussex Camay Magazine. It also gives an aceount_of. small birds clinging- tight to the person of the. lighthouse keeper when he comes out to the gallery. Confused and frightened, they lose all fear of man. The tale is told of a particular lark that flew into the keeper's opened hand, quite refused to be shaken off and prepared to sleep there. In two incidents of my experience frightened larks have taken refuge with man. Yet in the. wild the bird is not reckoned among the tamer species.

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