78 THE OSPKEY. 



paratively few of them are killed. As a general thing they do not strike the 

 light with suiEcient force to kill themselves and after fluttering up and down 

 the glass for a while they will hop around the balcony two or three times and 

 finally settle down on the sheltered side where they seem to enjoy the light 

 and warmth till day bz-eaks, and in this manner possibly thousands of birds 

 are annually saved that, lost in the night, would have blown out over the sea 

 until exhausted when they would have fallen into the water and drowned. 



From the time that they first strike the glass with a little biff like a 

 ball of cotton until they are released from their struggles by daylight or 

 death the little warblers never cease their frantic fluttering up and down, and 

 undoubtedly the most of them die of exhaustion or the nervous shock. 



No birds are more persistent in their efforts at self destruction than the 

 little Petrels, and yet so light and fairy like are they that I have never known 

 one to be killed outright, but possibly many of them die later from their self- 

 inflicted bruises. They are only seen around the light during the nesting 

 season, and they undoubtedly come to the tower on their way to and from 

 their nests, and like other birds they become confused in the fog and darkness. 



Before closing I should state that at light-houses which have fog horns 

 the destruction of birds is very light. A fact well known to light keepers is 

 that more birds are killed by a newly erected light-house than an old one and 

 that the number of birds killed decreases every year for the first few years 

 that the light is in operation until, it might be said, to have reached its nor- 

 mal power of destruction, which may point to the supposition that birds are 

 guided in their migrations as much by previous knowledge as by instinct and 

 therefore learn to avoid a known danger. 



A great Auk's Egg was sold in April and £252 was realized. 



An egg of the great extinct ^pyornis of Madagascar was sold for £42 ; 

 it was slightly cracked. 



A mounted specimen of a great Auk was sold for £315, on the 17th of 

 April, 1902, at the auction rooms of J. C. Stevens in London. 



