Page:The Migration of Birds - Thomas A Coward - 1912.pdf/131

Rh by a panic, they would come against the glass so rapidly that the sound of the blows resembled the pattering of hail." During his stay no birds came to the light except during dense cloud or fog, and they came in greatest numbers when an hour or two before the fog the sky was clear.

The experiences of Eagle Clarke, Seebohm and others who have spent migration seasons at light-houses might be quoted, but these two give a vivid description of what regularly takes place when weather conditions are unfavourable. Steady white lights are the most fatal to migrants, revolving lights, if white, are struck by some birds, but red lights seldom attract the passers. Mr Eagle Clarke thinks that birds are actually decoyed from their path and arrested in their course by the action of the lights; he says that a change from white to red lights at the Galloper Lightship stopped bird attraction.

On the mainland a new high building or tower, new telegraph wires or other erections, until their presence is familiar, take toll of passage birds.

Mr R. M. Barrington has for years collected information from the Irish lighthouses and light-vessels; some of his results were added to the work of the British Association Committee, and some he published himself (5). He emphasises the fact that these phenomena depend largely upon