Uncle Dick and Lisa's Old Time Animal Tales

The Naturalist publishes some additional evidence relative to the destruction of birds by telegraph wires. An observer writes from Iowa:
“Many prairie-chickens [Cupiaonia cupido] are annually destroyed in this way. In December 1868, near Cambridge, Story county, Iowa, I saw many of these birds lying dead in the snow, beneath the line of the telegraph, and was informed by the stage driver that they killed themselves striking the wire in their flight. Some of the birds had their heads cleanly cut off, and most of them were torn and lacerated to a greater or less extent. One or two of the wounded were still alive and fluttering. The spot seemed to be a favorite one for the flight of the chickens. A high belt of timber skirting the river, and beyond this lay the mile wide expanse of “Skunk-bottom,” bounded by high bluffs on the east. For certain reasons,-possibly owing to some peculiarity of the winds at this point, or to the protection afforded by the belt of timber,-the birds were accustomed to speed like arrows down across this bottom, and slight contact with the single wires that stretched across would either maim or kill them outright. Since that time I have heard of several instances in which these birds have been killed in the same manner. The destruction of these birds is so general along some of the railroad lines in the west, that section-men make a regular business of gathering them up as an addition to their own stock of provisions.