Note 79 — Chapter II
Reading edition
It is not the unfledged and the nursing bird alone that are exposed to destruction by severe weather. Whole flocks of adult and strong-winged tribes are killed by hail. Severe winters are usually followed by a sensible diminution in the numbers of the non-migrating birds, and a cold storm in summer often proves fatal to the more delicate species. On the 10th of June, 184-, five or six inches of snow fell in Northern Vermont. The next morning I found a humming bird killed by the cold, and hanging by its claws just below a loose clapboard on the wall of a small wooden building where it had sought shelter.