40 



BIRDS OF AMERICA 



More interest is evidenced in the history of 

 the Passenger Pigeon and its fate than in that of 

 any other North American bird. Its story reads 

 like a romance. Once the most abundant species, 

 in its flights and on its nesting grounds, ever 

 known in any country, ranging over the greater 

 part of the continent of North America in in- 

 numerable hordes, the race seems to have disap- 

 peared during the nineteenth century, leaving no 

 trace. 



The Passenger Pigeon was described by Linne 

 in the latter part of the eighteenth century ; but 

 it was well known in America many years before. 

 In July, 1605, on the coast of Maine, in latitude 

 43° 25', Champlain saw on some islands an " in- 

 finite number of Pigeons," of which he took a 

 great quantity. Many early historians, who write 

 of the birds of the Atlantic coast region, mention 

 the Pigeons. The Jesuit Fathers, in their first 

 narratives of Acadia (1610-13), state that the 

 birds were fully as abundant as the fish, and that 

 in their seasons the Pigeons overloaded the trees. 

 Passing from Nova Scotia to Florida, we find 

 that Stork (1766) asserts that they were in such 

 plenty there for three months of the year that an 

 account of them would seem incredible. John 

 Lawson (1709), in his History of Carolina, 

 speaks of prodigious flocks of Pigeons in 1701- 

 02, which broke down trees in the woods where 

 they roosted, and cleared away all the food in 

 the country before them, scarcely leaving one 

 acorn on the ground. The early settlers in Vir- 

 ginia found the Pigeons in winter " beyond num- 

 ber or imagination." The Plymouth colony was 

 threatened with famine in 1643, when great 

 flocks of Pigeons swept down upon the ripened 

 corn and beat down and ate " a very great quan- 

 tity of all sorts of English grain." But Winthrop 

 says that in 1648 they came again after the 

 harvest was gathered, and proved a great bless- 

 ing, " it being incredible what multitudes of them 

 were killed daily." 



These great flights of Pigeons in migration ex- 

 tended over vast tracts of country, and usually 

 passed in their greatest numbers for about three 

 days. This is the testimony of observers in many 

 parts of the land. Afterwards, flocks often came 

 along for a week or two longer. Even as late 

 as the decade succeeding i860 such flights con- 

 tinued, and were still observed throughout the 

 eastern States and Canada, except perhaps along 

 the Atlantic coast. 



About 1850 indications of the disappearance of 

 the Pigeons in the East began to attract some 

 notice. They became rare in Newfoundland in 

 the 6o's, though formerly abundant there. They 



grew fewer in Ontario at that time ; but, accord- 

 ing to Fleming, some of the old roosts there 

 were occupied until 1870. 



Alexander Wilson, the father of American 

 ornithology, tells of a breeding place of the Wild 

 Pigeons in Shelby ville, Ky. (probably about 

 1806), which was several miles in breadth, and 

 was said to be more than forty miles in extent. 

 More than one hundred nests were found on a 

 tree. The ground was strewn with broken limbs 

 of trees ; also eggs and dead squabs which had 

 been precipitated from above, on which herds of 

 hogs were fattening. He speaks of a flight of 

 these birds from another nesting place some 

 sixty miles away from the first, toward Green 

 River, where they were said to be equally nu- 

 merous. They were traveling with great steadi- 

 ness and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot, 

 several strata deep, very close together, and 

 " from right to left as far as the eye could reach, 

 the breadth of this vast procession extended ; 

 seeming everywhere equally crowded." From 

 half-past one to four o'clock in the afternoon, 

 while he was traveling to Frankfort, the same 

 living torrent rolled overhead, seemingly as ex- 

 tensive as ever. He estimated the flock that 

 passed him to be two hundred and forty miles 

 long and a mile wide — probably much wider — 

 and to contain two billion, two hundred and 

 thirty million, two hundred and seventy-two 

 thousand pigeons. On the supposition that each 

 bird consumed only half a pint of nuts and acorns 

 daily, he reckoned that this column of birds 

 would eat seventeen million, four hundred and 

 twenty-four thousand bushels each day. 



Audubon states that in the autumn of 1813 he 

 left his house at Henderson, on the banks of the 

 Ohio, a few miles from Hardensburgh, to go to 

 Louisville, Ky. He saw that day what he thought 

 to be the largest flight of Wild Pigeons he had 

 ever seen. The air was literally filled with them; 

 and the " light of noonday was obscured as by 

 an eclipse." Before sunset he reached Louisville, 

 fifty-five miles from Hardensburgh, and during 

 all that time Pigeons were passing in undimin- 

 ished numbers. This continued for three days in 

 succession. The people were all armed, and the 

 banks of the river were crowded with men and 

 boys, incessantly shooting at the Pigeons, which 

 flew lower as they passed the river. For a week 

 or more, the people fed on no other flesh than 

 Pigeons. The atmosphere during that time was 

 strongly impregnated with the odor of the birds. 

 Audubon estimated the number of Pigeons pass- 

 ing overhead (in a flock one mile wide) for 

 three hours, traveling at the rate of a mile a 



