356 Recent Literature. [.July 



of Alexander Wilson's and Audubon's accounts of the Passenger Pigeon, 

 with a colored reproduction of Audubon's plate. These form so important 

 :i part of the early history of the subject that their entire republication is 

 far more satisfactory than could have been any attempt at excerpting or 

 paraphrasing. Then follows, as Chapter IV, 'As James Fennimore 

 Cooper Saw It,' consisting of pertinent and graphic extracts from 'The 

 Pioneers' and ' The Chainbearer,' relating to the pigeon as seen in early days 

 in central New York. Chapter V is Chief Pokagon's account, published 

 in The Chautauquan' in November, 1895 (Vol. XXII, No. 20), and relates 

 to pigeons as seen by him in Ohio and Indiana as well as in Michigan. 

 This is followed by a transcript of the late Major Bendire's account of 

 this species given in his 'Life Histories of North American Birds' (1892). 

 This includes the greater of Mr. Brewster's article on the pigeon published 

 in 'The Auk' (VI, Oct. 1889, pp. 285-291), and the omitted parts are given 

 in Mr. Mershon's Chapter VII, 'Netting Pigeons.' Thus is copied entire, 

 in Chapters II-VII (pp. 9-76) the greater part of the standard literature 

 relating to the natural history of the Passenger Pigeon. Chapters VIII— 

 XI (pp. 77-140) chronicle its slaughter, beginning with Prof. H. B. Roney's 

 paper in the 'American Field' (of Jan. 11, 1879), and the counter-state- 

 ment by E. T. Martin in a circular issued later in the same year, followed 

 by statements from correspondents who, as former shippers of pigeons, 

 and thus conversant with the statistics and methods of pigeon slaughter, 

 give valuable data here for the first time published. 



Chapter XII, 'The last of the Pigeons,' consists of a series of notes from 

 'The Auk' (1895-1898), contributed by Ruthven Deane, and of various 

 communications to the author not before published. Chapter XIII, 

 'What Became of the Wild Pigeon,' is an article contributed by Sullivan 

 Cook to 'Forest and Stream' in 1903, who states, among other things, 

 that for forty days, during one season, three car loads of pigeons a day 

 were sent to eastern cities from a single shipping point in Michigan, or a 

 daily shipment of nearly 25,000 dozen, or a total of 1,000,000 birds; and 

 that in three years 990,000 dozen, or about 11,000,000, were caught and 

 shipped east from the northern part of the southern peninsula of Michigan. 

 He says: "And when you are asked what has become of the wild pigeons, 

 figure up the shipping bills, and they will show what has become of this, 

 the grandest game bird that ever cleft the air of any continent." 



Various theories of the disappearance of the wild pigeons having been 

 put forth, these are recited, Chapter XIV being a communication from 

 C. H. Ames, who advocates the hypothesis that they must have been 

 destroyed by natural agencies, perhaps by being drowned in the Gulf of 

 Mexico while migrating across it, or by other similar catastrophies else- 

 where. Comment on this theory was secured by the author from Mr. 

 Ridgway, who says: "Nothing in the history of the Passenger Pigeon 

 is more certainly known than the fact that its range to the southward 

 did not extend beyond the United States The range of the Passenger 



