THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 127 



of the pot-hunter when the hatching grounds were 

 discovered. This was done when the young birds were 

 about ready to leave the nest, and many were slaughf 

 ered at such time by the cruel gunner. 



A few years before their final disappearance these 

 birds had their hatching ground, one season that I 

 recall, on the North Mountains near the junction of 

 three counties of Pennsylvania, viz : Luzerne, Sulli- 

 van and Wyoming, then a wilderness of virgin tim- 

 ber, and far from the habitation of man. It was not 

 far from what is now Ricketts's station, on the Bow- 

 man's Creek Branch of the Lehigh Valley Railroad. 

 I passed through this place soon after the birds had 

 left, and' saw scores of nests on a single tree, and 

 every tree over a large area of the forest had been 

 similarly occupied by the birds. 



Now there is not a single live passenger pigeon in 

 North America, and probably not in the world. The 

 cause of their sudden disappearance is one of the 

 mysteries of the age. Could it be that their Creator, 

 by some act through nature pi evented their repro- 

 duction as a punishment of the people for their 

 cruelty in torturing and wantonly destroying His 

 creatures ; for not, by the enactment of proper laws, 

 protecting them from the cruel, criminal and waste- 

 ful methods adopted for their destruction? If we 

 could believe this, we might be more earnest in our 

 efforts to conserve the wild life that still exists in 

 our fields and forests — more anxious to save from 

 extinction other species of the feathered creation. 



