THE WARBLERS 



which man has erected along the coast to insure his own 

 safety. 'Last night I could have filled a mail-sack with 

 the bodies of little warblers which killed themselves strik- 

 ing against my light,' wrote the keeper of Fowey Rocks 

 lighthouse, in southern Florida. 



"Nor was this an unusual tragedy. Every spring the 

 lights along the coast lure to destruction myriads of birds 

 who are en route from their winter homes in the South 

 to their summer nesting-places in the North. Every fall 

 a still greater death-toll is exacted when the return journey 

 is made. A red light or a rapidly flashing one repels the 

 birds, but a steady white light piercing the fog proves ir- 

 resistible." ^ 



Few people realize the great good done by warblers. 

 Mr. Forbush says that in migration they seem to possess 

 enormous appetites. A Hooded Warbler was found to 

 catch on the average two insects a minute or one hundred 

 and twenty an hour. At this rate the bird would kill at 

 least nine hundred and sixty insects a day, in an eight 

 hour working day! 



Dr. Judd reported a Palm Warbler that ate from forty 

 to sixty insects a minute. In the four hours he was under 

 observation he must have eaten nine thousand, five hun- 

 dred insects. Mr. Forbush says that he has seen warblers 

 eating from masses of small insects at such a rate that it 

 was impossible for him to count them.^ 



iProm "Our Greatest Travelers," by Wells W. Cooke, of the Biological 

 Survey. 



- From "Useful Birds and Their Protection," by E. H. Forbush, pages 

 185 and 186. 



[255] 



