CHAPTER XXXI. 



HOW THE PASSENGER PIGEON 



CAME TO AN UNTIMELY EKD 



By DR. B. H. WARREN, 

 Former Director, Everhart Museum, Scranton. Author "The 

 Birds of Pennsylvania," Etc. 



THE Passenger Pigeon, or wild pigeon, as it is 

 better known to older residents, who in early 

 childhood days, saw immense flocks of the s]:)ecies in 

 this state, is now extinct. As H. \V. Henshaw, chief 

 of the biological survey, writes in the National Geo- 

 graphic Magazine, "on September 1. 1014, aged 20 

 years, departed this life, the sole surviving Passenger 

 Pigeon. This brief obituary records the disappearance 

 from earth, not only of the last survivor of a notable 

 American game bird, but, what is infinitely sadder, the 

 passing of a species." (The correct date is August 

 29, 1914.) 



The last living wild pigeon had been a captive for 

 some years in the Cincinnati zoological garden. The 

 common mourning or turtle dove is frequently mis- 

 taken for the wild pigeon by many persons wlio are 

 not acquainted with the two species. There seems to 

 be no doubt whatever in the minds of the best natural- 

 ists in America, that the Passenger or wild pigeon is 

 extinct. 



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