166 PROBLEMS OF BIRD LIFE. 



poising a few feet from the glass, inspect the lighted space 

 within. Often for a minute or more not a bird would strike. 

 Then, as if seized by a panic, they would come against the 

 glass so rapidly, and in such numbers, that the sound of their 

 blows resembled the pattering of hail. Many struck the tin 

 roof above the light, others the iron railing which enclosed the 

 platform, while still others pelted me on the back, arms, and 

 legs, and one actually became hopelessly entangled in my 

 beard. At times it fairly rained birds, and the platform, wet 

 and shining, was strewn with the dead and dying." 



Few of us will ever see the like of this, and yet, watching 

 the play of insects about an electric light, do we not see 

 something very similar, so nearly the same that the question 

 at once rises, Why are not birds killed by electric lights as well 

 as by lighthouses ? To a small extent they undoubtedly are 

 killed by striking electric lights, especially the tall clustered 

 lights used in some cities; but there are two good reasons 

 why more of them are not so destroyed : first, the light- 

 houses are placed along the migration routes while the 

 electric lights are more often away from these paths of 

 travel; and, second, foggy weather is needed to bewilder 

 them, especially a sudden fog arising after a clear day, an 

 occurrence common at the seashore, but rare inland. If 

 there is no fog, the birds do not strike the light, and unless 

 the fog comes in after they have begun their night's journey, 

 they will not travel that night. Mr. Brewster infers that 

 they migrate only on clear, cool nights, and that they are 

 unable to forecast the weather for a single night even, else 

 such fatal trips as the one he describes would not occur. 



But why, once involved in a fog, having lost their bear- 

 ings and the sight of land, they seek the lighthouse as the 

 only object visible is plain, and why once within the circle 



