64 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



to cause them to produce the food and materials they 

 desire, in larger supply than during the former phases 

 of life. 



To the isolated Indians and our pioneers the pas- 

 senger pigeons, during early spring and summer, when 

 other wild game was thin in flesh and unpalatable, came 

 as a bountiful source of food, in most palatable form, 

 and supplied them with all the meat and fat they de- 

 sired. That made comparative safety for all other 

 birds and animals, so far as their food was concerned, 

 and allowed six months of time for rearing their young. 

 That respite has preserved many varieties, of them, this 

 last century, from utter extinction. The pigeon proved 

 to be a benefactor to them, as well as to men. 



From the era. when pigeons came to relieve the 

 annual springtime shortage of food, we have advanced 

 to the ability of transporting the food that we require 

 by mechanical force ; so men do not need the pigeons 

 as much as they did. They have literally donated their 

 bodies and their existence for the benefit of men, birds 

 and beasts of the forests. They were martyrs to our 

 progress, as well as to the lives of a vast multitude of 

 people. 



It is no wonder that the philosopher and the poets 

 of a decaying race of Red Men, in America, were con- 

 strained to endow the passenger pigeons with almost 

 supernatural attributes, in their guardianship of the 

 wandering tribes that had been lost in the primeval 

 wilderness, since the creation of the world ; nor that 

 their hearts burst with sorrow when thev beheld the 



