IBtrU-lare 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINE 

 DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OF BIRDS 



Official Organ of the Audubon Societies 



Vol. IV September — October, 1902 No. 5 



The Destructive Effects of a Hail -storm Upon 



Bird Life 



BY H. Mel. MORTON. M.D., Minneapolis, Minn. 



THROUGH the familiar works of Gatke and others, through light- 

 house reports, and through personal observation, ornithologists have 

 been made conversant with the many remarkable accidents and 

 fatalities which occur to our birds, and especially during the trying ordeal of 

 migration. As an indication of one of these many possible vicissitudes in 

 the life of a bird, I take pleasure in acceding to the editor's request that I 

 write a brief report of the deadly effect upon bird life of an unusually 

 severe hail-storm, accompanied by a very high wind, which occurred in 

 Minneapolis during the summer of 1901. 



After an afternoon and evening of threatening weather on August 25, 

 a section of this city was visited by one of the most alarming and destructive 

 rain- and hail-storms in the history of our local weather bureau. Accord- 

 ing to our imaginative — and I think pardonably so — newspaper reporter, 

 "Hailstones as big as teacups, driven by a wind which gave them the 

 momentum of a six-pound shell," were among the very unusual features 

 of this sudden and alarming phenomenon. The path of the storm, 

 which was not more than half a mile wide, passed through the central 

 residence and park district of Minneapolis, and from a northwesterly to 

 a southeasterly direction. Loring Park, the most central and attractive 

 of our metropolitan reserves, suffered severely, trees being uprooted, 

 branches torn, and foot-paths converted into great gullies three to four 

 feet in depth; the pebbles, sand and mud thus carried away being deposited 

 over the lower grassy areas of the park to a depth of from one to three 

 feet. Added to this was the almost entire defoliation in certain areas of 

 the park, due to the hail. That such results as these must of necessity 

 have occurred will be evident from this extract which I take from the local 

 weather report. These observations apply to the immediate region of the 



