^'°'iS4"^^^] ^^otes and News'. 567 



little dreaming that the disappearance was general and that the supposed 

 'migi-ation' was really extermination. In many a local list the Passenger 

 Pigeon is mentioned and dates given which constituted the last record of 

 the bird for that state or county, although the writers Uttle thought when 

 they penned the lines of their import in years to come. 



The pigeon trappers year after year plied their nefarious trade, and with 

 the assistance of game dealers warded off legislation that might have 

 checked the slaughter, although there was really httle effort made in behalf 

 of the birds as the public faited to appreciate what was going on, and the 

 sentiment for the conservation of wild life was not yet aroused. 



Prof. H. B. Roney and others associated with him stand out as the few 

 who did realize the approaching catastrophe but his account of the butchery 

 of the last great nesting at Petosky, Michigan, in 1878, came too late. 



The bird was not exterminated at this time and Mr. WilUam Brewster 

 who went to Michigan in 1888 in the hope of seeing another nesting wTote: 

 "that the Pigeon is not, as has been asserted so often recently, on the verge 

 of extinction, is shown bj^ the flight which passed tlu'ough Michigan in the 

 spring of 1888 .... and the birds must have formed a nesting of consider- 

 able extent in some region so remote that no news of its presence reached 

 the ears of the vigilant netters." (Auk, 1889, p. 290.) 



Nevertheless it seems as if the slaughter of 1878 and years immediately 

 following had done its work; apparently the birds had been so reduced that 

 another great nesting was impossible. The pigeon like the buffalo was a 

 species whose existence seems to have depended upon association in large 

 numbers and once separated and scattered into small flocks and pairs its 

 doom was sealed. 



Later mention in ' The Aulc ' consists of early records hitherto impublished, 

 because their significance was not appreciated until the imminence of ex- 

 termination was forced upon our attention. Finally we have the numer- 

 ous recent records of "birds seen" mainly by people who never saw live 

 Passenger Pigeons in the time of then- abundance and then the rewards 

 for the detection of live birds under the direction of Prof. Hodge lasting 

 over tlu'ee years which were productive of negative evidence only. 



The Cincinnati bird was sent to the United States National Museum to 

 be mounted and placed on exhibition and we learn from Dr. Charles W. 

 Richmond, acting curator of birds, that it was photographed and then en- 

 trusted to Mr. WiUiam Palmer and Dr. R. W. Shufeldt, the former of whom 

 wa,s to skin it while the latter was to make a study of its anatomy and 

 presei-ve such of the soft parts as possible. We hope to pubhsh the results 

 of Dr. Shufeldt 's investigations in the January number of 'The Auk.' 



In an interesting article in the July- August number of 'Bird-Lore' 

 Mr. Leo E. Miller, a member of the Roosevelt Brazilian expedition, presents 

 some facts regarding the exportation of feathers frorii Argentina to the 

 United States. 



