“Probably there are many short zigzags from one favoured feeding-spot to another, but the general course between the summer and winter homes is as straight as the birds can find without missing the usual stopping-places. _Accidents during Migration_ “Migration is a season full of peril for myriads of winged travellers, especially for those that cross large bodies of water. Some of the shore-birds, such as Plover and Curlew, which take long ocean voyages, can rest on the waves if overtaken by storms, but woe to the luckless warbler whose feathers once became water-soaked,—a grave in the ocean or a burial in the sand of the beach is the inevitable result. Nor are such accidents infrequent. A few years ago on Lake Michigan a storm during spring migration piled many birds along the shore. “If such a disaster could occur on a lake less than a hundred miles wide, how much greater might it not be during a flight across the Gulf of Mexico. Such a catastrophe was once witnessed from the deck of a vessel, thirty miles off the mouth of the Mississippi River. Large numbers of migrating birds, mostly warblers, had accomplished nine-tenths of their long flight, and were nearing land, when they were caught by a ‘norther’ with which most of them were unable to contend, and, falling into the Gulf, were drowned by hundreds. “Then, as I have told you before, birds are peculiarly liable to destruction by striking high objects. A new tower in a city kills many before the survivors learn to avoid it. The Washington Monument has caused the death of many little migrants; and though the number of its victims has decreased of late years, yet on a single morning in the spring of 1902 nearly 150 lifeless bodies were strewn around its base. “Bright lights attract birds from great distances. While the torch in the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was kept lighted, the sacrifice of life it caused was enormous, even reaching a maximum of 700 birds in a month. A flashing light frightens birds away, and a red light is avoided by them as if it were a danger signal, but a steady white light looming out of mist or darkness seems to act like a magnet and draws the wanderers to destruction. Coming from any direction, they veer around to the leeward side, and then, flying against the wind, dash themselves against the pitiless glass. _Distance of Migration_ “The length of the migration journey varies enormously. Some birds do not migrate at all. Many a Cardinal, Carolina Wren, and Bob-white rounds out its whole contented life within ten miles of its birthplace. Other birds, for instance, the Pine Warbler and the Black-headed Grosbeak, do not venture in winter south of the breeding range, so that with them fall migration is only a withdrawal from the northern and a concentration in the southern part of the summer home—the Warbler in about a fourth and the Grosbeak in less than an eighth of the summer area.