liirti-iLore 



A BI-MONTHLY MAGAZINK 



DEVOTED TO THE STUDY AND PROTECTION OK BIRDS 



Official Organ of The Audubon Socicties 



Vol. XV March— April, 1913 No. 2 



PIditor's Note. — The photographs of Passenger Pigeons appearing in this number 

 of Bird-Lore form a unique and important addition to our knowledge of the ap]>ear- 

 ance in lite of this beautiful and now lost species. They were made by Mr. J. G. Hub- 

 bard, who generously contributes them to Bird-Lore, at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, 

 in the summer of 1898, and represent birds in the aviary of Dr. C. O. Whitman which 

 are referred to in the succeeding articles. The birds were in perfect condition, and the 

 photographs are believed to be adequate portraits of a species which, if we except the 

 single individual still living in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, will never be photo- 



graphed again. — F. M. C. 



A Vanished Race 



By MORITZ FISCHER 



IN the memorable year of grace 1534, Jaques Cartier of St. Malo, master 

 pilot of Francis I, king of France, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence in 

 search of a waterway to India for his royal patron. Coasting along the 

 eastern shore of an extensive island, he one day landed to explore the country, 

 and found that, to use his own words, the land was of the best temperature 

 that it may be possible to see, and of great warmth, and that there were 

 many Turtle Doves, Wood Pigeons, and other birds. 



This casual reference to a few birds observed by the intrepid Breton near 

 Cape Kildare on Prince Edward Island opens the marvelous and fragmentary 

 story of a creature that ranged the unknown continent in flights of stupen- 

 dous magnitude, and became known to later generations as the Passenger 

 Pigeon. 



When the great captains of the sixteenth century, of whom Cartier ranks 

 as one of the first, discovered and explored the mainland of North America, 

 and for more than two hundred years afterward, an unbroken forest of broad- 

 leaved trees covered its eastern half. Fringed by evergreen wildwoods to the 

 north, its western border, much indented by spacious grasslands or prairies, 

 spread its verdant tents northward to the Height of Land and beyond. In 

 this mixed forest there flourished here and there, as soil and climate favored, 

 and indeed compelled, woods composed entirely of one species, and holding 

 their own by shading out all other kinds. Such were the beech and oak forests 

 of the Ohio and Mississippi Valley, those of maple and chestnut east of the 



