YOUNG FOLKS

Southern Cross, Volume 24, Issue 2, 15 April 1916, Page 10

YOUNG FOLKS

BIRDS AND LIGHTHOUSES. It is a pathetic fact that the beacon of a lighthouse, which guides the storm-tossed sailor safely to the haven where he would be, should be the cause of the merciless . death each year of thousands of helpless birds, bound upon long mysterious journeys under darkened skies. For years it has been thought ithat the birds, hypnotised by. the light, dashed themselves against it to their death. Mr Thijsse, however, a Dutch naturalist, has learned from three years' experimenting that the birds are seeking a resting place as they fly round and round the baffling light, and those that fall to die within the ' lighthouse gallery, or in the sea below, have fallen from sheer exhaustion. Working under the supervision of Mr Thijsse, and by permission of the authorities of Trinity House, the Royal Society for the protection of birds in England, less than two years ago, erected perches for birds on the lighthouses of St. Catherine's, in the Isle of Wight, and the Casquets oft Alderney. Mr Thijsse's experiments at the Great Terchelling light showed that the loss of bird life there had thus been reduced from thousands in a. night to something like a hundred during the entire migration season. "Thousands of .birds," say the reports of the English lighthouse keepers, instead of fluttering on weary wing around the baffling light, discovered the long line upon line of perches and crowded upon them. . . . Thousands of little, birds huddled together thickly, birdsi,of many species, and varying sizes, but all alike. in their strange passion to reach their native place." "It was," said G ne witness, "the most wonderful sight I have ever seen in my life."—Our Dumb Animals.