176 THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS. 



the deck, and it is calculated from 500 to 600 

 struck the rigging and fell overboard ; a large pro- 

 portion of these were Larks. Thousands of birds 

 were flying round the lantern from 11.30 p.m. to 

 4.45 A.M., their white breasts, as they dashed to and 

 fro in the circle of light, having the appearance 

 of a heavy fall of snow. This was repeated on the 

 8th and 12th, and on the night of the 13th, 160 

 were picked up on deck, including Larks, Starlings, 

 Thrushes, and two Redbreasts ; it was thought 

 1000 struck, and went overboard into the sea." 

 Telegraph-wires are generally placed too low to be 

 in the usual path of migrants, but instances are on 

 record where birds have killed themselves by flying 

 against them on passage. Great numbers of birds 

 also lose their lives every year by flying unwittingly 

 into nets spread along the coast of the Wash. The 

 coast here is a well-recognized highway of migrants 

 coming to our islands from the East, and birds of 

 many species are annually taken in them. Curiously 

 enough, the Woodcock [Scolopax rusticola) is rarely 

 or never caught thus. He migrates by night like 

 so many of the rest, but flies high until well over 

 the land, when he drops almost perpendicularly into 

 the most likely cover. Many Woodcocks are 

 foolish enough, however, to commit suicide against 

 lighthouses and vessels ; and they have been known 

 to break glass three-eighths of an inch in thickness 

 by the force of contact — evidence, so far as it goes, 

 of the great velocity of migration flight of some 

 species. At the Bell Rock Lighthouse, for instance. 



