| OCR Text |
Show Death Toll of the Motor Car Exceedingly Heavy on Bird and Beast By DAYTON STONER, Iowa University. In this count only freshly killed carcasses of vertebrate animals lying In or immediately at the side of the highway were taken into consideration. In general, the greatest number of casualties were encountered on the good stretches of road. By way of illustrating this point it may be noted that on the return journey between the laboratory and Marshalltown, Iowa, a distance of 211 miles, all well graveled, 105 dead animals, representing 15 species, were counted; of these, 39 were red-headed woodpeckers. It will be sufficient to point out that on a summer motor trip of 632 miles over Iowa roads, 29 species of our native and introduced vertebrate animals, representing a total of 225 individuals, were found dead as a result re-sult of being crushed by passing automobiles, and that this agency demands de-mands recognition as one of the important checks upon the natural increase in-crease of many forms of life. Assuming that those conditions prevail over the thousands of miles of improved highways in this state and throughout the United States, the death toll of the motorcar becomes still more appalling. |
