Page 115 - Our Vanishing Wild Life
P. 115
DESTRUCTION BY THE ELEMENTS 93
and many perished of hunger and cold. But for the laws prohibiting late winter shooting undoubtedly all of them would have been shot and eaten, re- gardless of their distress.
Game wardens and humane citizens made numerous efforts to feed thestarvingflocks,andmanyducksweresavedinthatway. Anillus- trated article on the distressed ducks of Keuka Lake, by C. William Beebe and Verdi Burtch, appeared in the Zoological Society Bulletin for May, 1912. Fortunately there is every reason to believe that such occurrences will be rare.
Wild Swans Swept Over Niagara Falls.—During the past ten vears, several winter tragedies to birds have occurred on a large scale at Niagara Falls. Whole flocks of whistling swans of from 20 up to 70 individuals alighting in the Niagara River above the rapids have permit- ted themselves to float down into the rapids, and be swept over the Falls, en masse. On each occasion, the great majority of the birds were drowned, or killed on the rocks. Of the very few that survived, few if any were able to rise and fly out of the gorge below the Falls to safety.
It is my impression that about 200 swans recently have perished in this strange way.
