DANGER OF AN EARLY EXTINCTION OF SONG BIRDS. 181 
Light-houses are on the increase, and as the birds fly 
mostly at night, these beacons of safety to man become 
sources of peculiar danger to the birds. Thousands 
have been: killed on Bedloe Island, attracted by the 
light on the Statue of Liberty. It is said that this light 
can be seen by the naked eye twenty miles or more 
away. One morning the superintendent picked up 
1,375 birds that had perished the night previous by fly- 
ing against the light. During these flights by night, 
violent storms beat many to the earth, while thousands 
perish by being driven out to sea. The earlier migrants 
often suffer greatly by stress of weather in the spring, 
not so much with the extreme cold as for the lack of 
food. When the ground and trees are covered with ice 
the food supply of many species is almost entirely cut 
off: it then becomes a question of famine endurance. 
The decrease in larger game also works against the 
smaller birds. Men and boys, called sportsmen, go out 
to shoot. If they cannot find quails and plover, robins 
and bobolinks will do. If there are no pigeons and 
partridges, larks and flickers may fill their place. If 
these are scarce, then the smaller birds must become 
the prey. They came out to shoot and must have their 
sport. Sport! oh, cruel misnomer; how many millions 
of beautiful, innocent lives have been sacrificed in thy 
name! The Sabbath is particularly a day of terror 
and death to birds. Hundreds of men and boys from 
cities and villages go out into the country with guns 
for recreation. They shoot indiscriminately every wild 
cneoake Uley meet. I have found them with dozens of 
