A Tragedy of Migration 



By F, M. BENNETT, Commander, United States Navy 



THE night of April 14, 1909, the region of the Florida Keys was the scene 

 of a violent thunderstorm of several hours' duration, with lightning, 

 heavy rain, and high winds, blowing in squalls from the southwest. 

 The morning brought fine weather, and I observed at Key West that the town 

 was full of birds of several species, to be referred to by name a little later. The 

 visitation attracted the attention of every one, not only because of the great 

 numbers and brilliant plumage of the refugees, but, also, because land birds, 

 even during the migration seasons, are rare in Key West; even the persistent 

 English Sparrow has not yet found the place. 



April 20, six days after the storm, I left Key West to inspect some lighthouses, 

 going first to Sand Key, the big reef light only a few miles from Key West, and 

 then sixty miles to the w-estward to Tortugas. At Sand Key the light-keepers 

 told me of many birds killed by striking their light the night of the storm, and 

 I saw the bodies of a few that they had not disposed of; but it was not until I 

 arrived at Tortugas that I realized fully the magnitude of the migration wave 

 that had been broken by the force of the storm. The main light there, known as 

 Dry Tortugas, stands on Loggerhead Key and is 150 feet high, visible eighteen 

 miles from a ship; but to birds higher in the air than the height of the eye on 

 shipboard it must be visible much farther, and this great light had acted as a 

 magnet and drawn to itself countless thousands of birds of many kinds, over- 

 powered by the storm and forced to seek asylum. The keeper of that light 

 has been more than twenty years in the lighthouse service, and for several years, 

 when stationed on Alligator Reef, he collected bird data for the United States 

 Biological Survey; he is therefore familiar with the subject. 



Nevertheless, as soon as I landed on Loggerhead Key this keeper began 

 talking about the birds that had been on his island, saying over and over again 

 that he had never seen or heard of anything like it, and, after investigation, 

 I believe that he was right. Very few persons can possibly ever have seen any- 

 thing like what happened on that little islet the night of the storm and the few 

 days following. The bad weather, with wind and rain, began soon after sunset; 

 but at 10 p. M., when the keeper went on watch, there had not been a bird seen 

 about the light. By midnight, a few had struck the plate-glass panes of the lan- 

 tern, and at 2 a. m., when an assistant relieved the keeper, they had become 

 numerous. This assistant told me that from 2 o'clock until dawn they came 

 in such masses that he actually could not see out through the glass panes! He 

 said that they were all on the lee side of the lantern, away from the wind, and 

 did not fly against the glass at full speed, but rather fluttered and beat against 

 it, bruising and wounding themselves and each other, and thus causing death 

 to many. Occasionally, one coming at higher speed would strike hard enough 

 to kill itself on the spot. 



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