Allen on tJie Destruction of Birds hy Light -houses. 137 



port There were thirteen varieties in the lot, including the Brown 



Thrush, Bobolink, Catbird, and others usually found in New England. 

 Two weeks ago the ' Glaucus ' was boarded by a Canvas-back Duck, that 

 came in collision with one of the lanterns, and the day following roast 

 duck was added to the menu." Another account states that " during five 

 hours they continued to drop on the vessel, she going at the time full 

 twelve knots per hour, and multitudes of tlie poor creatures must have 

 perished in the water." The night is said to have been very dark, the air 

 being thick with smoke from forest fires on Long Island, and on this 

 account the reports of the incident assume that the birds were driven 

 from their forest homes by the fires, while in reality they were on their 

 northward migration, as the season and the direction of flight evidently 

 show. 



The few particulars given in the foregoing reports from 24 light- 

 stations (only about one twentieth of the whole number supported 

 by the United States), indicate that birds strike against the lan- 

 terns only in thick or focrgy weather, and during the migrations, 

 conforming in this respect, as would be expected, with observations 

 made at other points. By far the greatest number of fatalities 

 from this cause happens during protracted easterly storms. When 

 these occur, particularly at southerly points, during the fall migra- 

 tion, the destruction amounts often to hundreds of individuals at 

 each light in a single night, embracing apparently all the species 

 then migrating. The reports from a few stations seem to indicate 

 that birds are liable in foggy weather to strike the lights at any sea- 

 son of the year, but usually only a few, in comparison with the number 

 that come in contact with the same lights in fall and spring. Only 

 a few birds visit any of the above-mentioned lights (17 in number) 

 situated north of Cape May, no fatalities being reported from sev- 

 eral, while the keepers of the lights south of Cape May report uni- 

 formly a great destruction of bird life. The Cape May Light is the 

 first on the list at which great numbers of birds are killed ; at the 

 Cape Hatteras, Hunting Island, St. Augustine, and Rigolets Lights 

 the destruction is for greater, the keepers of the last-named lights 

 reporting that hundreds are sometimes killed in a single night at 

 each of these lights. This seems to show pretty conclusively that 

 the southern light-stations are far more destructive to birds than the 

 northern ones are. From this, together with the fact that " bird- 

 nights " occur when there are heavy easterly storms, it would seem 

 that at the southward many birds, particularly the smaller kinds, 

 take a more oft-coast route than they do at the northward. The 



