INTRODUCTION. 27 



dead birds, representing twenty-six different species. After consuming 

 all the time I could spare in this work, I walked over two miles or so of beach, 

 where the birds were more common than on the shore where the count was 

 taken; this brought me within half a mile of the mouth of the Sable river and I 

 then crossed it and turned my steps inland to a railway station. * * * 

 After my return I wrote to various persons near the lake shore. * * * 

 It appears that from below Grand Bend the birds were very numerous until 

 beyond Stony Point, but toward Kettle Point they diminished and were not 

 plentiful again until Blue Point, beyond which they were 'laying six deep 

 in one place.' * * * -phe northeastern section, of which I covered 

 perhaps two miles, would have approximately one thousand birds to the mile, 

 and the whole section might be perhaps ten miles; the western section was 

 probably thickly covered, but the length is unknown, possibly three miles, 

 or perhaps even ten." 



The weather conditions which resulted in this tragedy are thus described 

 by Mr. Saunders: "The early days of October. 1906, were warm and damp, 

 but on the sixth came a north wind which carried the night temperature 

 down to nearly freezing. Near there it stayed with little variation until 

 the tenth, and on the tenth the north wind brought snow through the western 

 part of Ontario. At London there was only two or three inches, which 

 vanished early next day; and the thermometer fell to only 32 degrees on the 

 night of the 10th, and to 28 on the 11th, but ten miles west there was five 

 inches of snow at 5 p. m. October 10, and towards Lake Huron, at the south- 

 east corner, between Goderich and Sarnia, the snow attained a depth of nearly 

 a foot and a half, and the temperature dropped considerably lower than at 

 London. On that night, apparently, there must have been a heavy migration 

 of birds across Lake Huron, and the cold and snow combined overcame many 

 of them, so that they fell in the lake and were drowned." 



It should be noted that in all probabihty the destruction of these birds 

 took place on the night of October 10-11, and that this is an exceptionally 

 early date for severe cold and heavy snow. Among the birds overtaken 

 by this disaster, the species most strongly represented appear to have been 

 the Winter Wren, Swamp Sparrow, White-throated Sparrow, Tree Sparrow, 

 Junco, and Golden-crested Kinglet. Mr. Saunders counted 417 Juncos in 

 the total of 1,845 birds alluded to. 



We have no time to discuss the alleged power of birds to divine coming 

 storms, nor can we enter into a consideration of such instincts as should 

 save them from disasters like those just described. I have tried to show 

 already that they possess no such extraordinary powers of flight as are 

 ascribed to them by popular writers, and had we the time, it might be shown, 

 I believe, that at least for a very large part of their migratory flight they 

 do not follow fixed paths, nor do they retrace their footsteps — or better, 

 wing-beats — through memory. That certain great natural highways exist, 

 I have no doubt, but certainly part of the throngs of birds which use them 

 do so not because they have ever used them before, or even because their 

 ancestors used them, but because the same forces which led to their use 

 then are still operative and because these routes are the easiest and best 

 paths to the regions desired. 



Natural highways, recognized as such by all well informed bird-students, 

 are the valleys of rivers having a general north and south trend, especially 

 the larger rivers. Famous examples of such highways are seen in the 

 Mississippi and the Red River of the north which combine to form a path 

 along which millions of birds pass annually between Louisiana and Manitoba, 



