78 PASSENGER PIGEON 



Passenger Pigeon : Ectopistes migratonus. 



Upper parts bluish ; back and sides of neck with metallic re- 

 flections ; under parts deep pink. Length, about 16^ inches. 



Geographic Distribution. — Eastern North America, north- 

 ward in the interior to Hudson Bay, breeding locally through- 

 out the more northern part of its range. 



Old inhabitants still recount the great flights 

 of the wild Pigeon in the days when the sun used 

 to be darkened by their multitudes, and AYilson 

 tells of a flock that was four hours in passing, its 

 line covering two hundred and forty miles and 

 the movement of its column being like the " wind- 

 ings of a vast and majestic river." At that time 

 the birds nested in roosts sometimes forty miles 

 long, and the people would come from all parts 

 of the country, with " wagons, axes, beds, and 

 cooking utensils," camping on the ground with 

 their families for days where they could plunder 

 the roosts. " The noise in the woods was so great 

 as to terrify their horses," Wilson says, " and . . . 

 it was difficult for one person to hear another 

 speak without bawling in his ear. The ground 

 was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and 

 young squab Pigeons ... on which herds of hogs 

 were fattening . . . the woods presented a per- 

 petual tumult of crowding and fluttering multi- 

 tudes of Pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, 

 mingled with the frequent crash of falling tim- 

 ber." 



Now, like the buffalo, hardly any Pigeons are 



