AVIATOR SHOT AT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3536, 29 May 1912, Page 8

AVIATOR SHOT AT.

FRENCH PEASANTS THINK AEROPLANE IS A MONSTROUS BIRD OF ILL OMEN. ■

A military aviator, Corporal Gilbert, had an exciting experience while flying over Le Puy. • The curious thing about the experience was that although the airman was in danger he knew nothing it until lie grounded. Gilbert was flying fairly low over some fields, when a farmer, raring him and his machine for a big bird, ran for his gun, which was hanging on tiro branch of a tree, and fired three times at the aeroplane. The country people in this district are haunter with a terrible dread of a. certain noxious and gigantic bird. During Lent, and particularly in Holy Week, the peasants constantly scan the sky, as the appearance *of this really mythical bird is, according to their firm belief, quite sufficient to bring had luck on all the crops which they have been sowing. The aviator and his machine were taken for this monster.

Corporal Gilbert', who had heard the shots and seen the smoke, thought a salvo was being fired in his honor and dropped, a. handful of pamphlets asking for subscriptions for army aeroplanes. Tire okl fanner was convinced that though he did not kill the bird he shot some feathers from it tail!