Taverner — On 1908 in S. E. Michigan. 201 



time of year', but as soon as the drouth began to make itself 

 felt they disappeared, and through September, about the sec- 

 ond week of which they should be at their commonest, we 

 "suggared" night after night, but scarcely a moth came to 

 our baits. The electric lights, that usually attract great num- 

 bers of insects, were almost deserted ; butterflies and beetles 

 were also scarce, and the summer, from a lepidopteral stand- 

 point, was a disappointment. 



That this had a powerful efifect on bird life can hardly be 

 doubted and, I think in consequence, some species departed 

 south rather earlier than they would otherwise have done. 

 From the vicinity of Ann Arbor I get reports that warblers 

 were unusually abundant this fall. This, however, hardly 

 agrees with my experience here. I found them, if anything, 

 rather scarce ; though this might well have been more apparent 

 than real, through not being in the proper places at the right 

 time. With it all, however, a considerable amount of rather 

 interesting data has been gathered in various directions, some 

 of the most striking of which I here copy from my note-books. 

 Some of this has been heretofore published in the Auk, but in 

 putting it all together a little repetition will do no harm. 



As indicated in the last number of the Bulletin in the Pelee 

 list, last winter we were favored with another visit of Brun- 

 nich's Murre. The cause or causes that drive this typically 

 arctic bird out of Hudson's Bay into our inland lake waters is 

 one of the interesting mysteries of ornithology. Mr. J. H. 

 Fleming has investigated the subject with great care (Pro. 

 IV, Int. Cong. pp. 538-543) and supposes that they were 

 caught between the field ice of the Bay and the shore and thus 

 forced out. On our Great Lakes they show a great preference 

 to following the shore-line, and seem to follow it on until they 

 drop with exhaustion. It may be that this headstrong pecul- 

 iarity is the cause of their undoing. Forced on a flight for 

 open water, some of them follow the shore-line south and 

 finally find themselves in the bottom of James Bay. Still in- 

 sisting in keeping on, instead of turning back, they ascend 

 one of the tributaries to its sources, cross the ridge of land to 

 the head waters of the Ottawa and so to the St. Lawren(e 



