56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Wcx)d ducks anci other species of waterfowl are often found to have the 

 muscles studded with the cysts of threadwomis or tapeworms. While para- 

 sites may not kill fullgrown birds directly they often diminish their 

 vitality to such an extent that they fall an easy prey to carnivorous 

 animals or unfavorable weather conditions. 



Of all the dangers which befall the feathered tribe, however, it is 

 doubtless true that unfavorable conditions of weather, whether of wind 

 or flood or snow or drought, destroy more birds directly than any of the 

 agencies already mentioned. During migration time they are subject 

 to the greatest mortality and are often driven to sea by storms and perish 

 in the waves. At times of fog or heavy rain or tempest, they fly against 

 lighthouses, wires and other objects. They even pitch headlong into lakes 

 and rivers as they descend toward the earth during fogs and storms, failing 

 to distinguish the surface of the water as they approach it, and their water- 

 soaked plumage renders them unable to rise again. Mr William Brewster 

 has observed such catastrophes on the lakes of Maine, and several accounts 

 have come to my notice of the wholesale destruction of small birds in 

 Oneida lake and other bodies of water in our own State. Dr T. S. Roberts 

 has given an authentic account' of the tremendous catastrophe which 

 befell the migrating longspurs in Minnesota during March 1905, when 

 millions of these birds were killed by flying against trees, buildings, and 

 the ice of lakes which they were unable to see on account of the heavy snow- 

 storm which overtook them in their flight. 



During long-continued rainy weather as well as heavy rainstorms 

 there is high mortality among young birds and sometimes the old birds 

 themselves are killed. Martins and swallows are often fovmd dead about 

 the bams and boxes which they inhabit after a continued cold rain in April 

 or May. Five hummingbirds were brought to me on the 31st of May 

 1 88 1, having been killed the previous day by a snowstorm which whitened 

 the ground for a few hoiors of the morning. These of course were an insig- 

 nificant percentage of the ntimber which were thus killed in that vicinity, 



'Auk, 24: 369-77. 



