Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 266, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1913 — DRAWN OVER FALLS [ARTICLE]

DRAWN OVER FALLS

Great Sacrifice of Animal Life in Niagara Cataract. Birds Especially Are Victims, While Geese, Ducks and Squirrels, Foxes and Bears Also Meet Death In the Seething Flood. New York. —The Niagara pitfall or “swan trap," aa appropriately dubbed at present, deservedly claims considerable attention from the local ornithologists of that region, and their reports have always been read with decided avidity in ornithological circles. These observers, as do others more remote, rue the fact of this almost yearly sacrifice, yet they feel their helplessness. With many birds and animals, it has been an ever recurring phenomenon which has been noted more or less irregularly in the historical literature of this country. These dozens or more buried notes from sources not always easily accessible to all zoologists may be of enough pertinent historical Interest to warrant their collection in one article, Albert Hazen Wright says in Forest and Stream. The first and most extended account is from a letter by Peter Kalin, who wrote September 2, 1750, that “several of the French gentlemen told me that when birds come flying into this fog or smoak of the fall, they fall down and perish in the water; either because their wings become wet, or that the noise of the fall astonishes them, and they know not where to go in the dark; but others were of opinion, that seldom or never any bird perishes there in that manner; because, as they all agree, among the abundance of birds found dead below the falls, there are no other sorts than such as live and swim frequently in the water; as swans, geese, ducks, water hens, teal and the like. “And very often great flocks of them are seen going to destruction In this manner; they sw’lm in the river above the fall, and so /ire carried down lower and lower by the water, and as water fowl commonly delight in being carried with the stream, so here they indulge themselves in enjoying this pleasure so long, till the swiftness of the water becomes so great that it is no longer possible for them to rise, but they are driven down the precipice end perish. They are observed when they draw nigh the fall to endeavor _yith all their might to take wing and leave the water, but they

cannot. In the months of September and October such abundant quantities of dead water fowl are found every morning below the fall, on the shore, that the garrison of the fort for a long time live chiefly upon them; besides the fowl they find also several sorts of dead fish, also deer, bears and other animals which have tried to cross the water above the fall; the larger aniamls are generally found broken to pieces. ... 1 was told at Oswego that in October or thereabouts such plenty of feathers are to be found here below the falls, that a man in a day’s time can gather enough of them for several beds, which feathers they said came off the birds killed at this fall. I asked the French If this was true. They told me they had never seen such a thing; but that if the feathers were picked off the dead birds, there might be such a quantity.” Toward the close of the eighteenth century, Isaac Weld, Jr., made the following observations: “Having reached the margin of the river, we proceeded toward the great fall, along the strand, which for a considerable part of the way thither consists of horizontal beds of limestone rock, covered with gravel, except, indeed, great piles of stones have fallen from the sides of the cliff. These horizontal beds of rock, in some places extend very far into the river, forming points which break the force of the current, and occasion strong eddies along particular parts of the shore. Here great numbers of the bodies of fishes, squirrels, foxes and various other animals, that, unable to stem the current of the river above the falls, have been carried down them and consequently killed, are washed up. Tbe shore is likewise found strewed with trees, and large pieces of timber, that „ have been swept away from the sawmills above the falls and carried down tbe precipice. The timber is generally terribly shattered, and tbe cartsasseg of all the large animals, particularly of large fitbec. ar* Vo*n/J very much bruised. A dreadful stench arises from the quantity of putrid matter lying on tbe shore, and numbreless birds of prey, attracted by it, are always seen hovering about the places. , These “wild bears” might have been ear-marked settlers’ swine run wild, a fact of which DeWitt Clinton did not apparently take cognizance when be penned the following remarks: “This, island (Goat) tfas formerly tbe plaoe wherq eagles erected their aeries, as well on account of its seclu-

sion, as Its propinquity to the eaf> casses below the falls. Some juara ago a large deer was seen for two or three weeks wading a short distance into the rapids from this Island, and retreating. He had been drifted do *n from above, and not knowing the sffe passage to tbe shore, he no doubt was carried over the falls. Volley Bays that he found at the bottom of tht precipice the carcasses of some deer, and wild bears which the current had hurried down the cataract on* their attempting to swim across the river above IL”