172 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



interested in the subject is worth recording here. 

 One morning in the Autumn he was working in his 

 garden when he heard a whir of wings not far above 

 his head. Looking up he saw a flock of about thirty 

 wild pigeons winging their way Southward. They 

 flew so low that his identification was positive. In- 

 voluntarily he took off his hat and waved it, shouting, 

 "The Passenger Pigeons are not extinct". That was 

 in 1905. He felt, as he expressed it, that he was 

 designated by fate to prove the existence of the birds 

 to the ornithological world. He began by naming 

 committees, soliciting rewards and extending a 

 knowledge of the birds in every locality where they 

 might possibly linger. But all in vain. No wonder 

 he became discouraged after nearly ten years of unre- 

 quited work. His faith was not confined to himself 

 alone. Other leading figures in the realm of orni- 

 thology have shared his optimism that the Passenger 

 Pigeon still exists and will return when conditions 

 are right. Dr. W. T. Hornaday, great authority on 

 all wild life topics, director of the extensive New 

 York Zoological Garden, and gifted writer, states in 

 his ''American Natural History'', published in 1903, 

 that in a certain county in Northern Pennsylvania a 

 naturalist fed a flock of three hundred wild pigeons 

 during an entire autumn about 1903, and expected 

 them to return the following year. Charles H. Eldon, 

 premier naturalist of Central Pennsylvania, who 

 mounted, at his studio in Williamsport. a handsome 

 male wild pigeon killed at Linden, Lycoming County. 



