108 



General Notes. 



An attempt was made to measure the speed of the birds by the method 

 described by Professor Stebbins and Mr. Fath in 'Science' for July 13, 

 1906. Two telescopes are placed a measured distance apart on a line 

 running north and south. The lines joining the telescopes with the moon 

 are practically parallel, and the time taken for a bird to pass between 

 these lines gives the rate of flight. On this evening only two birds were 

 seen by both observers. The birds were flying southward. Professor 

 Stebbins's calculations indicated that the rate of one was about sixty- 

 eight miles an hour and that of the other about ninety-three miles an hour. 

 — F. W. Carpenter, Universily of Illinois. n 



A Migration Disaster ia Western Ontario. — The early days of October, 

 1906, were warm and damp, but on the 6th came a north wind which 

 carried the night temperature down to nearly freezing. Near there 

 it stayed with little variation until the 10th, and on the 10th, the north 

 wind brought snow through the western part of Ontario. At London- 

 there was only 2 or 3 inches, which vanished early next day; and the 

 thermometer fell to only 32 degrees on the night of the 10th, and to 28 

 on the 11th, but ten miles west, there was 5 inches of snow at 5 P. M., Oct 

 10, and towards Lake Huron, at the southeast corner, between Goderich 

 and Sarnia, the snow attained a depth of nearly a foot and a half, and the. 

 temperature dropped considerably lower than at London. On that night, 

 apparently, there must have been a heavy migration of birds across Lake 

 Huron, and the cold and snow combined overcame many of them, so that 

 they fell in the lake and were drowned. 



Thanksgiving day fell on the 18th, and Mr. Newton Tripp of Forest, 

 spent the day on the lake shore, near Port Franks, and observed hundreds, 

 of birds on the shore dead, cast up by the waves. He wrote me about 

 it next day, calculating 5000 dead birds to the mile, and I took the first 

 train to the scene of the tragedy and drove out to the lake shore that 

 night. On the morning of the 21st, I patrolled the beach south from 

 Grand Bend, and after covering several miles and seeing only a few dead 

 birds, I came at last to the region of death. At first the birds were not 

 very close together, but eventually became so plentiful that in one place 

 I put my foot on four, and saw as many as a dozen in four or five feet. 



I began a census at once, which I continued until the lengthening shad- 

 ows warned me to hurry on to the river so as to cross in daylight, but in. 

 the two or three hours spent in the count I recorded the following: 



1 Black-throated Green Warbler, 4 Robins, 



1 Yellow Rail, 6 Fox Sparrows, 



1 Blue-headed Vireo, 5 Savanna Sparrows, 



1 Red-eyed Vireo, 5 Palm Warblers, 



1 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, 7 Myrtle Warblers, 



2 Black-throated Blue Warblers, 12 Lincoln Sparrows, 



3 Flickers, 15 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, 



