NOTES 



ornithological wonders of the world. Now the birds are gone. 

 What is supposed to have been the last one died in captivity in the 

 Zoological Park of Cincinnati, at 2 p.m. on the afternoon of Sep- 

 tember 1, 1914. Despite the generally accepted staternent that 

 these birds succumbed to the guns, snares, and nets of hunters, 

 there is a second cause, which doubtless had its effect in hastening 

 the disappearance of the species. The cutting away of vast forests, 

 where the birds were accustomed to gather and feed on mast, 

 greatly restricted their feeding range. They collected in enormous 

 colonies for the purpose of rearing their young; and after the for- 

 ests of the Northern states were so largely destroyed, the birds 

 seem to have been driven far up into Canada, quite beyond their 

 usual breeding range. Here, as Forbush suggests, the summer 

 probably was not sufficiently long to enable them to rear their 

 young successfully." 



Birds in their Relation to Man (Weed and Dearborn), pages 

 219-22. 



Educational Leaflet No. 6. (National Association of Audubon 

 Societies.) '' Those who study with care the history of the exterm- 

 ination of the Pigeons will see, however, that all the theories 

 brought forward to account for the destruction of the birds by 

 other causes than man's agency are wholly inadequate. There 

 was but one cause for the diminution of the birds, which was wide- 

 spread, annual, perennial, continuous, and enormously destructive 

 — their persecution by mankind. Every great nesting-ground 

 was besieged by a host of people as soon as it was discovered, 

 many of them professional pigeoners, armed with all the most ef- 

 fective engines of slaughter known. Many times the birds were so 

 persecuted that they finally left their young to the mercies of the 

 pigeoners; and even when they remained, most of the young were 

 killed and sent to the market, and the hosts of the adults were 

 decimated." 



LITTLE SOLOMON OTUS 



Otus asio, the Screech Owl, are the scientific and common names 

 of our little friend Solomon. Perhaps the fact that owls stand up- 

 right and gaze at one with both eyes to the front, accounts in part 

 for their looking so wise that they have been used as a symbol of 

 wisdom for many centuries. 



In the Library of Congress in Washington, there is a picture 



205 



