THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 53 



now, after thirty years, few old forest men can believe 

 that they do not exist in some hidden forest, from 

 which they will return when the growing beech trees 

 begin to yield their fruit, as was done in former times. 

 The decline was slow at hrst; but from 18G5 to 1886 

 it was remarkable — and then, the deluge! 



Many explanations have been suggested, such as 

 finding a few hundred drowned pigeons along the At- 

 lantic coast, indicating that a flight had been over- 

 whelmed by a tempest and the birds all drowned in 

 the ocean. A similar report from the Great Lakes. 

 Tlie old men shake their heads— they do not believe 

 that the birds w^e knew w^ere exterminated in such 

 manner. The tlieory of a fever, caused by food-bound 

 crops, when they left the last known nesting ground, 

 in Potter county, is unsatisfactory. The nests had 

 scarcely been completed when the pigeons fled. No 

 young birds were expected to feed upon the curds iii 

 the parents' pouch, or crop, for two full weeks, at that 

 period. The theory is as unsatisfactory as th.e others 

 have been. Once we heard that they \vere in Mexico, 

 feeding upon a different food ; then that they were in 

 Columbia, clothed in gorgeous plumage, as became a 

 tropi'cal bird, and last that they were in Chile, in the 

 same plumage they w^ore when here, with irridescent 

 hues that made them familiar to a Wisconsin expert — 

 as all old-time pine timber cruisers were. None of 

 these explanations satisfy our question. We are still 

 speculating — and questing — about it. 



