Allen on the Destruction of Birds by Light-houses. 137 
port There were thirteen varieties in the lot, including the Brown 
Thrush, Bobolink, Catbird, and others usually found in New England. 
Two weeks ago the ‘ Glaucus ’ was boarded by a Canvas-back Duck, that 
came in collision with one of the lanterns, and the day following roast 
duck was added to the menu” Another account states that “ during five 
hours they continued to drop on the vessel, she going at the time full 
twelve knots per hour, and multitudes of the poor creatures must have 
perished in the water.” The night is said to have been very dark, the air 
being thick with smoke from forest fires on Long Island, and on this 
account the reports of the incident assume that the birds were driven 
from their forest homes by the fires, while in reality they were on their 
northward migration, as the season and the direction of flight evidently 
show. 
The few particulars given in the foregoing reports from 24 light- 
stations (only about one twentieth of the whole number supported 
by the United States), indicate that birds strike against the lan- 
terns only in thick or foggy weather, and during the migrations, 
conforming in this respect, as would be expected, with observations 
made at other points. By far the greatest number of fatalities 
from this cause happens during protracted easterly storms. When 
these occur, particularly at southerly points, during the fall migra- 
tion, the destruction amounts often to hundreds of individuals at 
each light in a single night, embracing apparently all the species 
then migrating. The reports from a few stations seem to indicate 
that birds are liable in foggy weather to strike the lights at any sea- 
son of the year, but usually only a few, in comparison with the number 
that come in contact with the same lights in fall and spring. Only 
a few birds visit any of the above-mentioned lights (17 in number) 
situated north of Cape May, no fatalities being reported from sev- 
eral, while the keepers of the lights south of Cape May report uni- 
formly a great destruction of bird life. The Cape May Light is the 
first on the list at which great numbers of birds are killed ; at the 
Cape Hatteras, Hunting Island, St. Augustine, and Rigolets Lights 
the destruction is far greater, the keepers of the last-named lights 
reporting that hundreds are sometimes killed in a single night at 
each of these lights. This seems to show pretty conclusively that 
the southern light-stations are far more destructive to birds than the 
northern ones are. From this, together with the fact that “bird- 
nights ” occur when there are heavy easterly storms, it would seem 
that at the southward many birds, particularly the smaller kinds, 
take a more off-coast route than they do at the northward. The 
