Part I.] REPORT OF STATE ORNITHOLOGIST. 95 



drowned. Mr. Horace W. Wright reports, under date of July 

 16, 1917, from Jefferson Highlands, New Hampshire, that while 

 he had seen no dead birds his friends had told him of some. 

 He asserts that very few nesting warblers have been seen. Mr. 

 Harry A. Hathaway of Providence, Rhode Island, reports that 

 one teacher had 27 dead birds brought in, nearly all warblers, 

 and another teacher received about the same number. 



No one can tell how far the destruction of bird life extended, 

 but a glance at the weather map seems to indicate that condi- 

 tions more or less similar to those in New England during May 

 existed nearly all the way across the continent. The tempera- 

 ture averaged 6 degrees below the normal for the month from 

 western Maine to southern Pennsylvania, not including Long 

 Island and the coast regions of Connecticut and New Jersey. 

 From Maine the region of low temperature extended west to 

 the north central part of the peninsula of Michigan. It ran 

 south along the shore of Lake IMichigan, southwest to St. Louis 

 and west to California, taking in a wide belt of the Middle and 

 Southern States west of the Appalachian Mountains, including 

 only a small portion of the northern points of the Gulf States. 

 East, west, north and south of this belt the temperature in the 

 United States averaged only 3 per cent below the normal. The 

 mercury was very low in a large part of New York State, where 

 the average is given as 9 per cent below normal. The map 

 showing precipitation exhibits as usual a greater amount of 

 snowfall and rainfall in some regions than others, but sections 

 showing 4 inches extend from Massachusetts west nearly to 

 Utah. While it may be seen that the amount of rainfall for the 

 month is not great, the rain and cloudy weather was scattered 

 throughout the period, so that in every State in New England 

 there were not more than two or three days when no rain fell. 

 We might expect to find the mortality greater in those northern 

 States where the temperature was lowest and the precipitation 

 heaviest. Probably the lowest temperature would be found in 

 western INIaine, Vermont, New Hampshire and IMassachusetts 

 (excluding part of Bristol and Plymouth counties and all of 

 Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket counties); also in Rhode 

 Island, most of Connecticut, New York, northern and western 

 New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and jNIichigan, and 



