194 Henshaw on Causes affecting the Decrease of Birds. 
It is not necessary to enumerate the species that have been 
noted among the birds thus destroyed or to institute any com- 
parisons as to their relative or aggregate numbers. It is enough 
to note here that the list when fully made out will be found to 
embrace all our smaller species whose routes of migration or 
whose habitats are not so far inland as to place them beyond the 
reach of the coast storms. That the larger species, too, are not 
wholly exempt from disasters of this sort can be readily shown, 
Hawks, Owls, Ducks, and even Pelicans having been forced by 
gales against light-houses. The testimony is sufficient to show 
that thousands of birds are annually destroyed in this way, and 
that an infinitely greater number pass by unharmed and are lost 
to sight in the obscurity of the gale. What then becomes of these 
latter ? 
It is perhaps not so well known that vessels coasting off shore 
from ten to one hundred miles or more are frequently visited by 
birds that have been swept oft' the land by the wind. I have 
frequently during a voyage in the calm summer months found 
in the early morning three, six, eight or a dozen or more land 
birds perching on the vessel or flying in excited circles around 
and over it. Some of these are doubtless forced away from land 
by the pursuit of Hawks,* **or by moderate off-shore breezes, and 
without doubt soon find their way safely back. The same facts 
hold good, I believe, for the coast line all over the world, and I 
am told that in the Mediterranean it is extremely common for 
birds to alight on vessels, and that here their flight is rarely 
sufficiently protracted to in anywise injure them. But if caught 
at any considerable distance from land, it is noticeable that these 
wanderers will invariably die from exhaustion, no matter what 
care be taken of them, showing conclusively that they must have 
been on the wing a very long time. This fact is of interest, as 
it seems to imply the utter impossibility of at least the weaker- 
winged North American species — so many of which have been 
detected in England and the Continent — crossing the ocean with- 
out material assistance from vessels or other stable support upon 
which to alight and rest. 
* In fact, I once saw a Faleo polyagrus in attendance upon some Snowbirds and 
Sparrows at a distance of about seven miles off the California coast, and similar ob- 
servations have been made by others. 
