A Tragedy of Migration 113 



Warblers were seen at Key West frequently all during the winter and spring, 

 and these completely disappeared with the last of the refugees, which was about 

 April 21. 



Conclusions in review of the foregoing are that on the night of April 14, 1909, 

 there was an enormous flight of birds of the species above named, making pas- 

 sage from Cuba or Yucatan toward the coast of Florida; that a sudden storm 

 checked their advance and forced them to seek sanctuary, which they did by 

 converging upon such lights as they could see; that hundreds, and, possibly, 

 thousands, met death from exhaustion, or from injuries received in landing at 

 each place where they sought shelter, and that the total number thus destroyed 

 was small compared with the numbers that survived and continued their journey 

 later. Of the whole membership of that great wave of migration on a single 

 night it is impossible to form an opinion; but, from what I saw and heard at 

 Key West, Sand Key and Tortugas, it is not extravagant to say that the air 

 in this region must have been full of birds, and that their numbers. may fairly be 

 counted in tens of thousands. 



At American Shoal lighthouse, seventeen miles eastward from Key West, 

 not a bird was seen the night of the storm or the day after. The "bird belt," 

 therefore, must have extended in width from near Key West sixty miles to the 

 westward to Tortugas, arid an unknown distance into the unlighted Gulf of 

 Mexico beyond. As to what happened to those too far west to sight the Dry 

 Tortugas light, we can only conjecture, but, as the wind was behind them, 

 driving them onward in their appointed direction, it is to be hoped that they 

 were able to keep themselves in the air, and eventually reached the Florida 

 mainland, not more than 300 miles distant. Once, in a heavy northwest gale in 

 the Atlantic Ocean, I saw four species of land birds arrive on board a ship when 

 the nearest land, the coast of Nova Scotia, was more than 600 miles away, directly 

 to windward. 



Bobolink; His Prelude 



Ah! you tried to drown it in the rush 

 Of that bubbling stream of melodious glee, 

 But I heard it, and it will not hush. 

 Like the wraith of Spring it follows me. 

 'Tis her "vale, vale" lingering so 

 In those wild-sweet notes when you begin, 

 Like the upward creep of an elfin bow 

 On the strings of a fairy violin. 



— Mary J. Jacques 



