Massachusetts Audubon Society 



JUNE BULLETIN. 



BAD WEATHER The spring, a record breaker for cold, wet weather, 



FOR WARBLERS. has been one of great mortality among the song-birds. 

 In some sections, particularly those near the coast and 

 exposed to the full sweep of the east winds, the bluebirds and tree swallows 

 have not only failed to nest but have disappeared; many of them, without 

 doubt, dying from lack of food. Migrants, particularly the warblers, have 

 been found dead in great numbers. The cold perceptibly delayed the pas- 

 sage north of many of these and the lack of familiar insects in the air and 

 tree tops first brought them to the ground where they were easily seen and 

 noticed by people not particularly familiar with small bird life. This 

 was interesting and seemed to show a great increase in the number of these 

 beautiful birds. But later came disquieting reports. The birds were not 

 only more numerous but were very tame. People were able to pick them 

 up in the street and on lawns. Then followed reports of dead birds in 

 considerable numbers and of birds still alive eating most unusual food, 

 warblers that ordinarily feed in the tree-tops consorting on dung-heaps and 

 in barn-yards; and finally, so many reports have come of dead warblers 

 and other small birds all over the state that it is evident that the mortality 

 has been very great. For instance. Miss H. A. Hathaway, a teacher at 

 North Adams, reports twenty-seven dead or dying birds brought in to her 

 in one week. May 23rd to 30th, as follows: Warblers, — Blackburnian 2, 

 Redstart 4, Magnolia 2, Myrtle 1, Nashville 1, Yellow 2, Maryland Yellow- 

 throat 1, Parula 1, Canadian 1, Black-throated Blue 3, Black-throated Green 

 3, Chestnut-sided 2. Also, Robin 1, Chipping Sparrow 1, Yellow-bellied 

 Flycatcher 1. 



This is evidence of a mortality that, even if it was largely confined to 

 the cold, high levels of the Berkshires, must have been very great. If 

 twenty-seven were thus found within the restricted area covered by the 

 pupils of a single city school, by what factor must we multiply to reach 

 the total? Literally millions of these beautiful songsters must have died 

 in our northern States because of the unseasonably cold and wet weather. 

 If, as some learned men assert, persistent cannonading results in clouds 

 and storm, and the European War is responsible for our extraordinarily 

 cold and backward spring, then it is responsible also for this mortality in 

 bird life. One more reason to speed up recruiting and purchase Liberty 

 bonds. 



There are in the clouds certain rifts of sunshine, however. Many 

 schools and small museums find difficulty in securing skins and mounted 

 specimens of our birds for teaching purposes. These have utilized from 



