146 Bird -Lore 



deformed or diseased binls, and how seldom while 'in the field,' and 

 under usual conditions, we find the bodies, or skeletal remains, of a bird ? 

 True, one does see such occasionally on the plains, in wooded districts 

 and alonii the lake shores, that have probably fallen prey to the raptorials 

 or small mammals, but such findings are a numerically insignificant portion 

 of the great host of birds which meet death each year. How, then, ends 

 all this myriad avian host ? Countless numbers, no doubt, fall prey to 

 hungry birds and beasts — stronger links in the evolutional chain — no 

 evidence remaining to show a bird existed. Many eggs and nestlings fall 

 to the reptiles, as well as to Crows, Jays and their near of kin, whose 

 fledgling proclivities are well known. The deadly lighthouse claims its 

 thousands of sacrifices, and the 'small boy' and the hunter add their quota 

 to the death roll. 



To these, what we may call, external death factors, I am inclined to 

 believe we may add flood and hail, and I believe this applies with especial 

 force and fitness to our prairie avifauna, so varied and so numerous in the 

 great northwest country — the Dakotas, northern Minnesota and the 

 Canadian plains still to the north. Here countless hosts of birds spend 

 their summers and rear their broods. Over these districts hail -storms are 

 of such frequency and intensity as to justify the belief that, compared to 

 these causes, the work of the lighthouse and the hunter must be 

 insignificant. 



T^ -s 



DOUBLE -CRESTED CORMORANTS 

 Photocraphcd from nature, by Frank M. Chapman, Shoal Lake, .Manitoba. Jul) , i(;oi 



