THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 175 



mounted, in his collection which was taken on the 

 Root River, Minnesota, in August, 1891. The writer, 

 though not belonging to the generations that knew 

 the passenger pigeons, was fortunate enough to have 

 begun his business career in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 

 fall of 1900. In those days there was a cage full of 

 passenger pigeons at the famed Cincinnati Zoo, and 

 Ok Sundays, when there was nothing else to do, it was 

 his pleasure and privilege to go there and stand for 

 hours before the cage, drinking in the romance and 

 exaltation that the sight of these noble birds evoked 

 hi his spirit. What a joy to be young like in those 

 grand days, with a big world and boundless hopes, 

 now, alas, circumscribed and caged as were the grace- 

 ful wild pigeons that enthralled his imagination ! 

 Perhaps his second most vivid impression of the pas- 

 senger pigeons Vv^as received at Paris in the Natural 

 History Aluseum of the Jardin Des Plantes. It was a 

 dark, cold afternoon in the fall of 1910, gusts of wind 

 were rapidly defoliating the horse chestnut trees of 

 the boulevards. There was anatmosphere of gloom in 

 the vast museum as he passed from atelier- to atelier, 

 by the noble effigy of the Asiatic lion of the Vale of 

 Gujerat to the brindle wolf, a recent acquisition, 

 from Clermont-Ferrand, by the Quagga from the 

 Orange River, and the Okapi of the Congo jungles — 

 to an obscure alcove looking out on Cuvier's cypress- 

 shaded house. There, in a huge tall case, closelv 

 packed together, were many mounted specimens of 

 obscure members of the pigeon tribe, and on the next 



