THE DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS BY THE ELEMExVTS IN 



1903-04. 



nr EinvAKP iiowe fouiush, oumtiioijxjist to the board. 



There are many ways in which birds are destroyed by 

 storms. The casualties resulting from local thunderstorms 

 accompanied by high winds and heavy downpours of rain or 

 hail are most commonly observed. Such storms aifect all 

 small birds that nest in places where they have no adequate 

 protection from the fury of th,e elements ; but the effects 

 produced are not often widespread enough to constitute a 

 serious check on bird increase over large areas. Long, cold 

 storms coming in the breeding season may prove very 

 destructive to bird life. Unseasonable storms occurring 

 while birds are migrating sometimes prove equally fatal. 



AA^hen cold snowstorms drive far south of theu' normal 

 latitudes, great suffering among birds ensues. There are 

 authentic records of such a calamity which occurred in the 

 winter of 1898-99, when great numbers of birds were killed. 



Cold waves, reaching far south, are sometimes fatal to 

 birds either in fall or spring migrations or in the winter. 

 In 1895 most of the bluebirds and tree swallows of a large 

 section of New England perished while in the more southern 

 States. 



Wind storms sometimes sweep migrating birds into lakes 

 or seas. Some such catastrophe may have occurred to the 

 warblers of Massachusetts in the winter of 1902-03, for few 

 were seen here in the ensuing May. This scarcity of 

 migrating warblers was noticed by every field ornithologist 

 with whom I have conversed on the subject. I was in the 

 woods nearly every day, and never saw so fcAv of these birds 

 during the flight. Mr. Wm. S. Perry of Worcester Avrites 



