The Wilson Bulletin— No. 46. 21 



A DISASTROUS TRIP. 



W. F. HENNINGER. 



For several years it had been the desire of the writer to 

 visit the famous Port Clinton (Ottawa County, O.) marshes to 

 explore the bird world at the same place where Dr. lyangdon 

 had been so fortunate in 1880. The afternoon of June 1st 

 found me at Port Clinton, in a terrible rain and wind storm. 

 Early the next morning found me out on the Portage River 

 exploring the marshes for miles, then in the afternoon out on 

 the Lake Erie waters. June 3rd, and 4th, on which day 

 I was joined bj^ Rev. W. Eeon Dawson of Columbus, found me 

 on Sandusky Bay, on the grounds of the Portage Gun Club and 

 the Wynous Point Shooting Club. It was the same scene 

 everywhere. The storm had carried the water higher inland 

 than for the last eighteen years, and everything had been 

 flooded, The only birds that had escaped destruction of their 

 nests were the Red- winged Blackbird and the Eong- billed 

 Marsh Wren. All our searching was in vain. Not a Grebe, 

 not a Least Bittern were seen, but few Coots and Gallinules 

 heard. On Friday, Brother Dawson ascended the dizzy height 

 of the water works tower at Sandusky, but as far as the eye 

 could see, the waters spread over the Sandusky marshes. 

 Under these condition it was a wonder that any birds had 

 escaped, and our record of sixty-six species noted during our 

 three days' stay will still compare favorably with Langdon's 

 ninety, as seen in 1880. 



Of interest were only a troop of five Bonaparte Gulls and 

 four Semi-palmated Sandpipers on June 3rd, several Black 

 Terns and sixteen Turnstones, seen on June 4th on Sandusky 

 Bay. The Turnstones were found on a newly planted corn- 

 field, and it was a pretty sight to watch them turning over the 

 clods and catching their prey. It was in the club house of 

 the Wynous Point Shooting Club that we found the most in- 

 teresting things, stored away in the collection of birds, and 

 enabling Brother Dawson and myself to bring home at least 

 a few noteworthy records from this disastrous trip. 



The first was a specimen (sex unknown) of Chen hyperbo- 

 rea nivalis, shot in the fall of 1886. 



