THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
[With 1 colored plate.] 
Accounts by Pear Kat (1759) and Joun James AUDUBON (1831). 
[The former habitat of the passenger pigeon (Hetopistes migratorius) as given by the 
American Ornithologists’ Union check list (third edition, 1910) is as follows: 
“Bred formerly from middle western Mackenzie, central Keewatin, central Quebec, 
and Nova Scotia south to Kansas, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, and New York; win- 
tered principally from Arkansas and North Carolina south to central Texas, aes 
and Florida; casual in Cuba, eastern Mexico, and Nevada; now probably extinct.’ 
There is one living bird left. This is in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens. 
The causes of the extermination of this pigeon are chiefly the greed of civilized 
man. The destruction of forests within its range greatly reduced its natural food 
supply, and the killing (by netting, shooting, clubbing, etc.) of enormous quantities 
in the end produced the same effect as with the bison. When these pigeons were still 
numerous great numbers were used in trap shooting. 
_ In a wild state the pigeon became extinct about the year 1900—possibly a few 
lingered after that date, yet Mershon! estimates (p. 92) that a total of 1,000,000,000 
were killed in the Michigan ‘‘nesting” of 1878.] 
I._A DESCRIPTION OF THE WILD PIGEONS WHICH VISIT THE SOUTH- 
ERN ENGLISH COLONIES IN NORTH AMERICA, DURING CERTAIN 
YEARS, IN INCREDIBLE MULTITUDES. 
By Pesr Kam (1759).? 
In North America there is a species of wild pigeons* which, com- 
ing from the upper part of the country, visits Pennsylvania and 
others of the southern English settlements during some years, and 
in marvelous multitudes. 
They have, however, already ban described and exceedingly well 
illustrated in lively colors by the two great ornithologists and match- 
1 Readers wishing to pursue the subject further should consult W. B. Mershon’s book, The Passenger 
Pigeon, 1907, New York, from which the colored plate herewith is reproduced. 
2Translated by 8S. M. Gronberger from Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiens Handlingar, for ar 1759, Vol. 
20, Stockholm, 1759. Reprinted by permission from The Auk, Vol. 28, Jan., 1911. 
3 The names given by ornithologists and others to these pigeons are as follows: 
Columba (macroura) cauda cuneiformi longa, pectore purpurascente. Linn. Syst. X, T. I, p. 164. 
Columba macroura. The long-tailed dove. Edwards’s History of Birds, T. I, p. 15, t. 15. 
Palumbus migratorius. The pigeon of passage. Catesby’s Nat. Hist. of Carolina, Vol. I, p. 23, t. 23. 
Dufvor, Villa Dufvor [pigeons, wild pigeons], so called by the Swedes in New Sweden. 
Pigeons, wild pigeons, by the English in North America. 
Tourtes, by the French in Canada. 
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