MANNER OF MIGRATION, 57 
Observations of this kind should be made in Septem- 
ber, when the fall migration is at its height. On the 
night of September 3, 1887, at Tenafly, New Jersey, a 
friend and myself, using a six-and-a-half-inch equatorial 
glass, saw no less than two hundred and sixty-two birds 
eross the narrow angle subtended by the limbs of the 
moon between the hours of eight and eleven. Observa- 
tions made several years later, in September, from the 
observatory of Columbia University, yielded closely simi- 
lar results. 
This nocturnal journey of birds may also be studied 
from lighthouses. On September 26, 1891, I visited the 
Bartholdi Statue of the Goddess of Liberty, in New York 
Bay, for this purpose. The weather was most favorable. 
The first bird was observed at eight o’clock, and for 
the succeeding two hours others were constantly heard, 
though comparatively few were seen. -At ten o’clock it 
began to rain; and almost simultaneously there was a 
marked increase in the number of birds about the light, 
and within a few minutes there were hundreds where 
before there was one, while the air was filled with the 
calls of the passing host. 
From the balcony which encircles the torch the scene 
was impressive beyond description. We seemed to have 
torn aside the veil which shrouds the mysteries of the 
night, and with the searching light exposed the secrets 
of Nature. 
By far the larger number of birds hurried onward ; 
others hovered before us, like Hummingbirds before a 
flower, then flew swiftly by into the darkness ; and some, 
apparently blinded by the brilliant rays, struck the statue 
slightly, or with sufficient force to cause them to fall dead 
or dying. At daybreak a few stragglers were still wing- 
ing their way southward, but before the sun rose the 
flight was over. 
