32 



BULLETIN 185, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



the mouth of the Mississippi River. Large numbers of migrating 

 birds, mostly warblers, had accomplished nine-tenths of their long 

 flight and were nearing land, when caught by a "norther," with which 

 most of them were unable to contend, and falling into the Gulf they 

 were drowned by hundreds. 



During migration birds are peculiarly liable to destruction by 

 striking high objects. The Washington Monument, at the "National 

 Capital, has witnessed the death of many little migrants ; on a single 

 morning in the spring of 1902 nearly 150 lifeless bodies were strewn 



Fig. 14. — Distribution and migration of the scarlet tanager (Piranga erythromelas). An example of an 

 extremely narrow migration route. The breeding range has an east and west extension of 1,900 miles. 

 The migrating lines converge until in southern Central America the limits are not more than 100 miles 

 apart. (See p. 25.) For a less narrow and a wide migration route see figs. 13 and 12, respectively. 



around its base. As long as the torch in the Bartholdi Statue of 

 Liberty in New York Harbor was kept lighted the sacrifice of bird 

 life it caused was enormous, even reaching a maximum of 700 birds 

 in a month. 



Every spring the lights of the lighthouses along the coast lure to 

 destruction myriads of birds en route from their winter homes in the 

 South to their summer nesting places in the North. Every fall a still 

 greater death toll is exacted when the return journey is made. Light- 

 houses are scattered every few miles along the more than 3,000 miles 



