Henshaw on Causes affecting the Decrease of Birds. 195 
But it is in spring and fall, and especially after high winds and 
foggy storms, that the full effects of this class of disasters are 
to be observed and to some slight extent measured, instances 
being known where in an interval to be measured by minutes 
hundreds of birds have been seen from a vessel to fall into the 
water and perish from sheer inability to sustain themselves longer 
on the wing** 
The same disastrous results which often accompany the migra- 
tory birds along the ocean coasts are also experienced as they pass 
over the great interior lakes. An account of an instance of such 
destructive results has just appeared in a late Chicago newspaper, 
which is of such interest in the present connection, I give it in 
the subjoined note.f 
These two classes of facts point to the conclusion to which I 
wish to call attention, viz . , that the ocean each year proves the 
burial place for vast numbers of birds. If, as is the case, u hun- 
dreds” of birds are dashed against the slender shaft of alight- 
house in a single night, a thousand are hurried past on the wings 
of the gale for one that meets its doom through the treacherous 
lantern’s rays, and if, as is equally true, not alone hundreds 
but multitudes are occasionally noticed from the decks of vessels 
after storms dropping into a watery grave or striving with faint 
and failing wing-beats against a stern and inevitable fate — if these 
[*See Mr. Frazar’s note on destruction of birds by storms in the Gulf of Mexico, 
published in this number of the Bulletin in the department of “General Notes.” — E d.] 
f “ Very few people have any idea of the really immense number of birds which are 
lost in the great lakes every year. They are driven off shore by heavy winds, or, cross- 
ing from shore to Shore, are tired out and fall into the water. 
“ Very many are lost when they come up from the-JSouth in spring, and there are 
more or less losses all summer, though the fall is the time in which the greatest de- 
struction occurs. Then the birds are gathered in families or flocks, living a nomadic 
life all through the time of molting, wandering everywhere in search of food. Their 
new plumage is not always perfect, and their flight is therefore apt to be feeble, and 
September gales drive them where they will. It is not the small birds alone that fall 
victims, but the largest and strongest as well as the small and delicate. 
“ Two years ago there was a heavy storm, lasting some twenty-four hours. It 
occurred during the first week in September, and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan 
was strewn with dead birds. I took some pains to count these on a certain number of 
yards, and estimated that if the eastern shore was alike through all its length over half 
a million of birds were lying dead on that side of the lake alone. It is more than 
likely that nearly as many more were on the west. Not all the birds could be counted, 
because many were immediately buried in the sand that is being swept back and forth 
on the beach. 
