INTRODUCTION 



FOR the last three years I have spent most of my 

 leisure time in collecting as much material as 

 possible which might help to throw light on the 

 oft-repeated query, "What has become of the wild 

 pigeons?" The result of this labor of love is scarcely 

 more than a compilation, and I am under many obliga- 

 tions to those who have so cheerfully assisted me. I 

 have given them credit by name in connection with their 

 various contributions, but I wish that I might have 

 been able to give them the more finished and literary set- 

 ting that would have been within the reach of a trained 

 writer or scientist. I am merely a business man who is 

 interested in the Passenger Pigeon because he loves the 

 outdoors and its wild things, and sincerely regrets the 

 cruel extinction of one of the most interesting natural 

 phenomena of his own country. If I have been able to 

 make a compilation that otherwise would not have been 

 available for the interested reader, I need make no 

 further apologies for the imperfect manner of my treat- 

 ment of this subject. 



It is hard for us of an older generation to realize that 

 as recently as 1880 the Passenger Pigeon was thronging 

 in countless millions through large areas of the Middle 

 West, and that in our boyhood we could find no exag- 



