In a poem Hares of the Somme I speculated as to how these creatures survived the Great War. In “Gas” The Story of the special Brigade (RE) by Major General C.H. Foulkes CB CMG DSO reference is made to the efforts of British gas on pets and wildlife, which appeared in a German newspaper the Frankfurter Zeitung.

Eagwyrt by Kate Wyatt.

“All the pets in the trenches suffer from the gas attacks. The Guinea-Pigs are the first to scent the gas and the cats also complain at once. Many dead rats and mice are found in the trenches after gas attacks. Owls are greatly excited. Behind the front fowls and ducks are said to become restless a quarter of an hour before the gas clouds approached; and the gas kills ants and caterpillars, beetles and butterflies. I found a hedgehog and an adder both killed by gas. The only birds that seem indifferent to gas are the sparrows.”

Foulkes also observes ‘Pigeons too, seem to have been found susceptible, because the Germans kept their carrier pigeons in gas tight boxes which had ordinary respirator drums screwed into one side.

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