,_•(, THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



irregular in their habits, and the center of abundance within historic times 

 was in the North Central States. Altho very abundant in Ohio, they are best 

 known from Kentucky, through the accounts of Wilson and Audubon, and 

 in Michigan, where the birds had their last known stronghold, and where 

 the last considerable flight was observed in 1888. In Kentucky they bred 

 and occasionally wintered in such numbers that Wilson once computed a sin- 

 gle flight at upwards of two billions. Since the Pigeons appeared to the peo- 

 ple of the day absolutely countless their destruction was carried forward 

 by wholesale methods, and upon a colossal scale. Men gathered them with 

 nets and knocked them down with poles-, or felled trees to secure the fat squabs. 

 At Pentwater, Michigan, people lined the cliffs and beat them down with 

 sticks and whips as they arrived spent with the passage of the Lake, and they 

 wielded their weapons until the ground was heaped with countless thousands 

 slain. Powder and shot were deemed inadequate for the quest, altho my 

 grandfather in southern Michigan in the late Forties once killed fifty-nine 

 Pigeons with a shot-gun at a single discharge. The next day his boys, a 

 lusty brood, and zealous for their father's honor, turned out and scoured the 

 neighborhood until they found one more dead bird and added it to the col- 

 lection. 



"In order to show- a little more clearly the immense destruction of the 

 Passenger Pigeon in a single year and at one roost only, I quote the follow- 

 ing extract from an interesting article 'On the habits, methods of capture, and 

 nesting of the Wild Pigeon," with an account of the Michigan nesting of 1878, 

 by Prof. H. B. Roney in the Chicago Field (Vol. X. pp. 345-347) : 



'The nesting area situated near Petosky, covered something like 100,000 

 acres of land, and included not less than 150.000 acres within its limits, being 

 in length about 40 miles by 3 to to in width. The number of dead birds sent 

 by rail was estimated at 12.500 daily, or 1.500.000 for the summer, besides 

 80,352 live birds: an equal number was sent by water. We have,' says the 

 writer, 'adding the thousands of dead and wounded ones not secured, and 

 the myriad^ of squabs left dead in the nest, at the lowest possible estimate, a 

 grand total of 1,000,000,000 Pigeons sacrificed to Mammon during the nest- 

 ing of 1878.' "' 



Even if the last estimate were a hundred times too large (as I believe it 

 to be) it is evident that such wholesale slaughter could not go on forever. 

 The extraordinary flights suddenly ceased during the Eighties. Since that 

 tune. What has become of the Passenger Pigeon? has been the puzzling ques- 

 tion. There are those who believe that great roosts are now maintained in 

 the northwest, beyond the reach of communication. Others fancy they may 

 have abandoned the migratory habit and taken to staying in Central and 

 South America. Others still believe that they have rather abandoned the 

 gregarious habit, and are to be found only in isolated pairs 1 r small groups 



1 Bendire Life 



