THE 



CANADIAN BECOBD 



OF SCIENCE. 



VOL. VI. JANUARY, 1895. No. 5. 



Remarkable Flight of Certain Birds from the 

 Atlantic Coast up the St. Lawrence to the 

 Great Lakes. 



By E. I). Wintle. 



Two most remarkable flights of Briinnich's Murres^up 

 the St. Lawrence River to the Great Lakes occurred in 

 November, 1893, and in November, 1894, which are 

 unprecedented with this species as far as we have any 

 record of such occurrences. It is not uncommon for 

 solitary individuals of various species of sea birds to 

 wander up the St. Lawrence to the Great Lakes, but 

 when large numbers are found so far inland, as in the 

 case of the Murres, there must be some cause for such an 

 unusual visitation, But it is a difficult matter to assign 

 the true cause, although, as a rule, scarcity of food is 

 thought to be by ornithologists the cause of unusual 

 visitations of birds from their natural habitats. If 

 scarcity of food was the cause of the Murres spreading so 

 far inland, the unfortunate birds which survived the 

 fusillade of guns must have died of starvation before the 

 following spring, as the stomachs of several which wen- 

 shot and examined did not contain any food, so that we 



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