A Novel Theory of Extinction 177 



Memorandum prepared by Mr. Robert Ridgway, Cura- 

 tor of the Division of Birds, U. S. National Museum, 

 to accompany letter to Mr. fV. B. Mershon, Sagi- 

 naw, Mich. 



If Mr. Mershon will communicate on the subject of 

 Passenger Pigeons with Mr. William Brewster,* 145 

 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass., he may get some 

 data which will (or ought to) dismiss from considera- 

 tion the idea that the passenger pigeon could have been 

 exterminated in the manner suggested by Mr. Ames. 

 During a visit to northern Michigan, Mr. Brewster 

 talked with a great many pigeon netters. I have for- 

 gotten the figures, and may be very inexact in my recol- 

 lection of them, but my recollection is that at one 

 "roost" there were one hundred netters who averaged 

 one thousand (it may have been ten thousand) pigeons 

 per day. When it is considered that this was the rate 

 of destruction at one locality in one State only, that 

 the same was going on in other States, and that tens of 

 thousands were being killed by hunters and others, and 

 this year after year, I cannot see anything surprising in 

 the eventual extermination of the species, no matter 

 how numerously represented originally. 



Nothing in the history of the Passenger Pigeon is 

 more certainly known than the fact that its range to 

 the southward did not extend beyond the United States. 



* See Chapter VII, "Netting the Pigeon" by Wm. Brewster. 



