Road Victims
The total of birds and other animals killed on the roads is considers at this season. The road-sense differs much in different species. Blackb in the experience of some motorists are the most frequent victims, but the blackbird is the commonest bird, according to the census-makers, the sparrow comes next. The only creature that 1 have driven over—and was not, I think, a penny the worse—has been a grey squirrel, and species has no road-sense. I have known it to jump on to the radio of a slowly-driven car: Young partridges have a peculiar fondness the edges of a road ; but the excellence of the central surface, even by-roads, has no attractions for birds and is happily avoided. Al all animals, especially rabbits, are dazed by headlights ; but the lig of a car are not deadly as are the more prevailing lights of a lightho It is recorded, for example (in a most informative pamphlet on Plynio Bird Life, by J. L. Palmer), that the victims at the Eddystone in night during the autumn migration included 76 skylarks, 53 starlings, I blackbirds and 9 thrushes, with a few of some ten other species Intl ing stonechats and gold-crests. Incidentally, such lists make one won whether any species may be claimed as wholly stay-at-home.
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