Strange Accidents to Wild Birds 



travellers gaining admission and knocking over or other- 

 wise extinguishing all the exposed lights in the place. 



Thanks to the efforts of the Royal Society for the 

 Protection of Birds, perches have been placed round 

 the upper parts of many lighthouses for tired wayfarers 

 of the feathered world to rest upon until conditions 

 allow them to wing their way to their winter quarters. 



Telegraph wires are a fruitful source of danger to 

 birds that fly by night, and especially so if they stretch 

 across an open moor or the flying route of migrants. I 

 have picked up the mangled remains of members of 

 many different families lying beneath them, both in this 

 country and on the Continent, and one night whilst 

 standing on the platform of Eastleigh Station, near 

 Southampton, I saw a wild duck strike the telegraph 

 wires and fall into the four-foot way. Wild ducks are 

 sometimes picked up on the decks of ships lying at 

 anchor in large rivers and estuaries. They strike the 

 rigging or funnels during their nocturnal flights, and 

 as many as five were found one morning aboard a vessel 

 lying at the mouth of the Thames. I have seen puffins 

 collide in mid-air, and petrels and other seafowl have 

 been known to do so and fall into passing boats. 



Although swallows are such quick-sighted birds and 

 are able to change tHe direction of their swift flight with 

 amazing ease and dexterity, it occasionally happens 

 that they either do not perceive the danger lying in their 

 path or are not quick enough to avoid it in time. I 

 have once or twice, whilst casting for trout, accidentally 

 knocked down and stunned a swallow with my fly rod, 



