THE REASON OF BIRDS.
[TO THE EDITOR OF TEE " SPECTATOR.")
SIR,--In your issue of the 27th ult., you quote a story told in some of the papers of hawks having been noticed, in parts of England and France, to fly after railway-trains in order to • pounce on the small birds put up by the trains. You draw certain deductions, "if that story is true," and say that "it needs precise verification." I have myself observed a similar thing happen in India. The East-India Railway between the Toondla Junction and Agra runs at one place over a high embankment, the outside slopes of which are planted with the " babool " tree. The tops of these, three years ago, were about, on a level with the windows of the carriages, and shook and waved as the train rushed by.
Travelling one day in the same carriage with one of the rail- way staff, who had occasion to pass over the line very often, he told me, on approaching the spot, to look out for "the hawks chasing the birds," As the tree-tops shook and swayed, the small birds flew out of them, and the hawks which, whether waiting or not, were close by, flew after them. It is, of course, possible that the neighbourhood may have been one favoured of hawks, who, seeing the birds in troubled flight, went after them. But there was no reason to suppose this, the gentleman attached to the railway had observed it as a new thing, and he had no doubt that the hawks came and waited because they knew the tree-tops would shake and the birds rush out.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Bayne Club, Sept. 29th. R. E. FonuEsT, P.W.D., India.
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