Henshaw on Causes affecting the Decrease of Birds. 1 95 



But it is in spring andrfall, and especially after high winds and 

 foggy storms, that the full effects of this class of disasters are 

 to be observed and to some slight extent measured, instances 

 being known where in an interval to be measured by minutes 

 hundreds of birds have been seen from a vessel to fall into the 

 water and perish from sheer inability to sustain themselves longer 

 on the wing.* 



The same disastrous results which often accompany the migra- 

 tory birds along the ocean coasts are also experienced as they pass 

 over the great interior lakes. An account of an instance of such 

 destructive results has just appeared in a late Chicago newspaper, 

 which is of such interest in the present connection, I give it in 

 the subjoined note.f 



These two classes of facts point to the conclusion to which I 

 wish to call attention, viz.. that the ocean each year proves the 

 burial place for vast numbers of birds. If, as is the case, " hun- 

 dreds" of birds are dished against the slender shaft of a light- 

 house in a single night, a thousand are hurried past on the wings 

 of the gale for one that meets its doom through the treacherous 

 lantern's rays, and if, as is equally true, not alone hundreds 

 but multitudes are occasionally noticed from the decks of vessels 

 after storms dropping into a watery grave or striving with faint 

 and failing- wing-beats against a stern and inevitable fate — if these 



[* See Mr. Frazar's note on destruction of birds by storms in the Gulf of Mexico, 

 published in this number of the Bulletin in the department of "General Notes." — ED.] 



t " Very few people have any idea of the really immense number of birds which are 

 lost in the great lakes every year. They are driven offshore by heavy winds, or, cross- 

 ing from shore to shore, are tired out and fall into the water. 



" Very many are lost when they come up from the South in spring, and there are 

 more or less losses all summer, though the fall is the time in which the greatest de- 

 struction occurs. Then the birds are gathered in families or flocks, living a nomadic 

 life all through the time of molting, wandering everywhere in search of food. Their 

 new plumage is not always perfect, and their flight is therefore apt to be feeble, and 

 September gales drive them where they will. It is not the small birds alone that fall 

 victims, but the largest and strongest as well as the small and delicate. 



" Two years ago there was a heavy storm, lasting some twenty-four hours. It 

 occurred during the first week in September, and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan 

 was strewn with dead birds. I took some pains to count these on a certain number of 

 yards, and estimated that if the eastern shore was alike through all its length over half 

 a million of birds were lying dead on that side of the lake alone. It is more than 

 likely that nearly as many more were on the w r est. Not (7/7 the birds could be counted, 

 because many were immediately buried in the sand that is being swept back and forth 

 on the beach. 



