246 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



sorely persecuted, not only for its depredations 

 on the crops, but for the sake of its flesh. Its 

 numbers, however, were so enormous that even 

 this long-continued decimation appears to have 

 had little effect until comparatively recent years. 

 Wilson estimated its numbers in thousands of 

 millions ; whilst Audubon described them in 

 language which competent critics have condemned 

 as exaggerated. No species, however, could 

 withstand the slaughter that has gone on, and 

 the onl}?^ marvel is that there are any Passenger 

 Pigeons left in America at all ! The species, we 

 have reason to believe, can yet be preserved, 

 and it is sincerely to be hoped that American 

 naturalists will see that this is done. The vast 

 hordes that roamed the country even within the 

 past twenty years are gone; their capture is no 

 longer a profitable occupation ; and now that the 

 birds are reduced to breeding in scattered pairs 

 instead of in countless flocks, their extermination 

 must certainly be retarded. Bendire informs us 

 that isolated pairs still probably nest in the New 

 England States, Northern New York, Penn- 

 sylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and a 

 few other localities farther south. 



Few birds could have been more gregarious than 



