But their traditions of the Middle West have 

 gone with the Passenger Pigeon. 



range? Some, of course, left because their homelands were spoiled, but 

 this is not the whole story. Some say they left because civilization pressed 

 too closely upon the nesting places. If it is implied that these wildfowl 

 moved away because they could not tolerate the close presence of man and 

 his activities, this cannot be true, for today in some parts of their present 

 range, wild Trumpeter Swans and Canada Geese thrive within sight of 

 human dwellings. It must be that during settlement and in the lush days 

 of gunning, local breeders and their young were gradually taken. One by 

 one, pair by pair, family by family, the geese and swans of Minnesota and 

 the Middle West were used for food. An old-time resident of Heron Lake, 

 Minnesota, told Dr. Roberts (1932) that Trumpeter Swans "used to breed 

 there in fair numbers and that men from the east came to the lake, rounded 

 up the cygnets in the open water before they could fly, and shipped them 

 to eastern parts." Delacour (1944) points out that "Trumpeters used to nest 

 and to winter well within areas which became settled by man when the 

 country was opened up. Consequently they were slaughtered quickly and 

 easily." Unlike the Whistling Swan, which calls the Arctic its home, the 

 breeding places of the Trumpeter Swan were in lower latitudes early set- 

 tled by man. When domestic duties held swans to a small locality, voice 

 and action soon disclosed their presence to men, who came to take what 

 they believed to be their rightful harvest. 



245 



