178 The Passenger Pigeon 



There Is a single Cuban record, but the occurrence was 

 purely accidental. The migrations of the Passenger 

 Pigeon were wholly different in their character from 

 those of true emigrants, that is to say, they were in- 

 fluenced or controlled purely by the matter of food 

 supply, as in the case of the robin and some other birds, 

 and the flights were as often from west to east and 

 vice versa as from south to north or north to south ; in 

 short, the flocks moved about in various directions in 

 their search for food or nesting places. For myself, 

 I do not believe in the story of drowning in the Gulf 

 of Mexico for two reasons. In the first place the birds 

 are extremely unlikely to have been there, a hurricane 

 from the northward being absolutely necessary to ex- 

 plain their presence in that quarter, and, in the second 

 place, no such explanation is needed in view of what is 

 known to be the facts concerning their wholesale de- 

 struction by human agency alone. 



The range of the Passenger Pigeon was limited to 

 the mixed hardwood forest region of the eastern 

 United States and Canada, and any that occurred be- 

 yond were stragglers, pure and simple. Consequently 

 it was not found, except as stragglers, in the long-leaf 

 pine belt of the Gulf Coast, but only on the uplands 

 from northern or middle Alabama, Mississippi, and 

 Louisiana, northward. 



