Letters, Extracts, and Notes. 183 



The Final Extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. — From the 

 October number of 'The Auk' we learn that the last living: 

 example o£ Ectopistes migratorius died on September 1 of 

 last year in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. It uas a 

 female and had been in captivity for twenty-nine years. 

 The Passenger Pigeon nested in large communities, and 

 these were so raided by trappers that there can be little 

 doubt that the bird has been exterminated by the direct 

 agency of man. 



INIr. Frank INI. Chapman ('Birds of Eastern North America/ 

 1912, p. 282) gives the following account of the history of 

 this bird : — " Wilson, writing about 1808, estimated that a 

 flock of "V\'ild Pigeons observed by him near Frankfurt, 

 Kentucky, contained at least 2,230,272,000 individuals. 

 . . . An article by William Brewster on " The Present Status 

 of the W^ild Pigeon as a bird of the United States with 

 some notes on their habits " (Auk, vi. 1889, p. 285), gives 

 much information concerning the recent history of the bird 

 in ^Michigan, one of its last strongholds. According to an 

 informant of Mr. Brewster's the last nesting in Michigan 

 of any importance was in 1881, It was of only moderate 

 size — perhaps eight miles long. The largest known Michigan 

 nesting occurred in 1876 or 1877. It was twenty-eight 

 miles long and averaged three or four miles wide. 



" The Passenger Pigeon is now so nearly extinct that 

 although it has been reported as ' seen ' on various occa- 

 sions, there appears to be no unquestionable record of its 

 actutd capture since 1898, Singularly enough, two speci- 

 mens were taken on September 14 of that year, an immature 

 bird at Detroit, Mich. (Fleming, Auk, 1903, p. 66) and an 

 adult male at Canandaigua, N.Y. (Eaton, ' Bir.!s of New 

 York')," 



' Zoological Record' for 1913, — The portion of the 'Zoo- 

 logical Record' for 1913 containing the " Aves " was 

 issued last month and should be in the hands of every 

 working ornithologist. It can be obtained apart from the 

 rest of the volume for 6^, from the publishers, Messrs. 

 Harrison & Sons, of 45 St. ^Martin's Lane. 



