No. 4.] DESTRUCTION OF BIRDS. 467 



accurately estimated, for nests, eggs and young birds were 

 Avashed away. One could sail a boat over the meadows 

 along the Concord or Ipswich River. The water rose into 

 the neighboring lowlands, in one instance, at least, flooding 

 a truck garden and destroying the sparrows' nests in low 

 fields near the river. 



It has been difficult to get much information concerning 

 the results of the storm in Berkshire or Franklin Count3^ 

 ]\Iost of the correspondents there have not noticed any 

 unusual suftering among birds, but, as the rainfall was quite 

 as heavy west of the Connecticut as east of it, probably some 

 injury Avas done. The storms of the 12th and 21st were 

 not generally so severe, however, in Berkshire as farther 

 east ; still, Mr. J. Alden Loring writes from Pittsticld that 

 many lowland pastures were flooded, and he noticed that the 

 young in three birds' nests that he happened to have under 

 observation all perished, and that a nest of the chimney 

 swift fell ; and Mr. Wesley B. Barton of Dalton says a good 

 many young birds died from exposure. The rise and fall 

 of the rivers there are very rapid. Some of them rose con- 

 sidera])ly, but the injury done to birds by flood seems not 

 to have been noticed. 



The after-effects of the storm on bird life generally along 

 the overflowed rivers in eastern and central Massachusetts 

 were very noticeable. Rails and marsh wrens disappeared 

 from the Concord meadows ; bobolinks became scarce ; 

 swamp sparrows and song sparrows took to the woods, and 

 bitterns to the fields and brooksides. 



Mr. Bailey writes that along the Concord River in Bille- 

 rica and Bedford, and Miller's River in Ashburnham and 

 Winchendon, red- winged blackbirds lost all their broods. 

 He has not seen a young bird in either section, or heard of 

 iinf having been seen. Many nests of bitterns, rails and 

 swamp sparrows and one of the black duck were submerged. 



Mr. C. E. Ingalls of East Templeton, Worcester County, 

 writes that the rise of water on the Otter and other rivers 

 must have destroyed many young blackbirds. Yery few 

 young have been seen this season near liis place. On 

 August 2 there seemed to be no blackl)irds, as he did not 



