422 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Are Bird Migrations Affected by an Extreme Southern Winter ? 
— The extraordinary cold, combined with snow, which affected the 
Southern States February 8 to 14, undoubtedly had a very destruc- 
tive effect on the birds of that region. A correspondent of the 
Boston Transcript sends to that paper the following clipping from the 
Charleston (S. C.) News and Courier : 
“On Tuesday a gentleman flushed a woodcock in the neighbor- 
hood of the City Hall, and a little later in the day a colored man 
captured one on Broad Street. The poor bird was too cold to make 
much use of its wings to effect its escape. At Mount Pleasant num- 
bers of them, together with quail, were found near the habitations of 
men, and caught. ‘They were evidently driven in from the fields and 
woods by cold and hunger, and thus made themselves easy victims 
to the pot hunter. More than half a dozen negroes were seen yester- 
day with large bunches of birds, consisting of quail, woodcock, and 
doves, which they had found, no doubt, in a partially frozen condi- 
tion. This illustrates how even the wildest creatures aré sometimes 
driven by extreme cold and hunger to take the most desperate chances 
in searclr of food, and how for the time they become as tame as 
domestic animals aand birds. No doubt there will be a great scarcity 
of game another year, for large numbers of the smaller animals and 
birds, especially birds, must have perished from the intense cold of 
the last few days.” ; 
Have any students of this spring’s migrations noticed any dimi- 
nution in the number of birds? 
