Vol jc^ n ] Roberts, A Lapland Longspur Tragedy. 371 



streets of the village, but it was said that many had been washed 

 away by a hard rain storm which occurred on the night of the 20th. 

 All over the courthouse yard dead birds lay only five or six feel 

 apart, and this was reported to have been the condition throughout 

 the town the morning after the storm. Adjoining the town on the 

 west and the east lie two small lakes, each having an area, at a very 

 conservative estimate, of one square mile. The winter ice was still 

 on these lakes but the snow had melted and frozen again, thus 

 presenting an unobstructed hard surface. Here the dead birds 

 were more conspicuous than among the grass and mud of the fields 

 and town, and the ice was found to be everywhere dotted will) 

 their bodies over the entire surface of both lakes. Dr. Dart walked 

 out to the middle of each lake and made careful estimates by 

 measuring off a number of twenty-foot-square areas in various 

 places and counting the birds in each. The average showed five 

 and a half birds to the four hundred square feet, or a total of 374,328 

 birds on each lake, which reveals the remarkable fad that in round 

 figures there were 750,000 Lapland Longspurs on the surface of 

 these two lakes alone! And this figure, large as it may seem, is 

 really less than the truth, for the estimate, in order to keep well 

 within bounds, has been cut in one or two places, and a million birds, 

 incredible though it may seem, is probably nearer the truth. 



In clumps of bushes around one of these lakes were many live 

 Longspurs, showing evidences of various injuries more or less 

 severe. Some could not fly sufficiently to avoid being taken in the 

 hand. They had evidently managed since the storm to eke out an 

 existence in these sheltered places, unnatural haunts though they 

 were for Lapland Longspurs. At a residence in town were seen 

 two live Longspurs, a male and female, among the plants in a window 

 garden where they had been fed and lived contentedly since their 

 capture on the 14th. They were not at all shy. Dr. Dart states 

 in his notes that from his observations about town he could not 

 determine positively that there were, or had been, more dead birds 

 under the wires than elsewhere. 



The interviews had at Worthington resulted as follows: The 

 village night-watchman said that on the night of the 13th— 14th 

 there was practically no wind and that snow was falling steadily 

 and quietly during a portion of the night. He first noticed the 



