PASSENGER PIGEON 379 



DISTRIBUTION 



Range. — The West Indies ; accidental at Key West, Fla. ; non- 

 migratory. 



The range of the scaled pigeon extends north to Cuba (Nueva 

 Gerona and Guantanamo) ; northern Haiti (Massif du Nord, Morne 

 Salnave, and Catare) ; northern Porto Rico (Desecheo Island, Cule- 

 bra Island, and Culebrita Island) ; and the Lesser Antilles (St. 

 Eustatius and Guadaloupe). East to the Lesser Antilles (Guade- 

 loupe, Dominica, Martinique, Santa Lucia, St. Vincent, the Grena- 

 dines, Carriacou, and Grenada). South, to the southern Lesser 

 Antilles (Grenada) ; southern Haiti (Selle Mountains and Hatte 

 Mountains) ; and the Isle of Pines, Cuba (Nueva Gerona). West 

 to the Isle of Pines (Nueva Gerona). 



Egg dates. — West Indies : 2 records, March 8 and May 26. 



ECTOPISTES MIGRATORIUS (Linnaens). 

 PASSENGER PIGEON 



HABITS 



Contributed by Charles Wendell Town send 



The passenger pigeon, or wild pigeon, as it was often called, is 

 generally believed by ornithologists to be extinct. Of the mighty 

 hosts of this splendid bird that swarmed over the country, not a 

 single individual is thought to remain alive to-day, and yet within 

 the memory of men not yet old, the bird was well known, and the 

 possibility of its extinction was far from their thoughts. Indeed, 

 whenever laws were proposed for conserving the bird, the cry at 

 once went up that it needed no protection, for its numbers and the 

 extent of country over which it ranged were both so huge that pro- 

 tection seemed unnecessary. Even the tardy protective laws passed 

 by some States were largely disregarded. 



At last, in 1910, 1911, and 1912, when it was too late, attempts 

 were made to save the bird, and rewards that totaled more than 

 $1,000 were offered for evidence that it was living and nesting — 

 the live bird, not the dead one was sought. But it was all in vain. 

 The passenger pigeon appears to have gone the way of the dodo and 

 the great auk. 



James H. Fleming, who has made the most complete and critical 

 studies of the recorded specimens of the passenger pigeon, believes 

 (1907) that " for all practical purposes the close of the nineteenth 

 century saw the final extinction of the passenger pigeon in the wild 

 state and there remained only the small flock, numbering in 1903 

 not more than a dozen, that had been bred in captivity by Prof. 



