1922.] of the Passenf/fiv Pigeo7i in Canada. l41 



it rioted in a spendtbrit't revelry of numbers, vvliicli led 

 to exhaustion and extinction. We may, it" it so pleases 

 us, surmise that its vital mechanism had, for some cause 

 or other, sim{)ly burnt itself out, or that there was some 

 sudden alteration in the sex-ratio ; but whatever we choose 

 to think, there are I believe two causes at least for which 

 there would appear to bo a very justifiable doubt as to their 

 being the actual determining factors leading to the total 

 and final disappearance of the Passenger Pigeon from this 

 planet. One of them is a microbic infection, the other the 

 machinations of man, wholesale as the latter were. If it had 

 been the first, there would have been abundant and patent 

 evidence available, and as to the second the probabilities 

 seem all against such an idea ; for if the Passenoor Pigeon 

 had not, for some reason which we cannot yet fathom, been 

 doomed to disappear utterly and finally, we should surely 

 have witnessed small scattered populations still holding out 

 in such places where chance and protection afforded them 

 the opportuuit}'. 



Doubtless there will be not a few who will dissent. It will 

 be pointed out that the Passenger Pigeon was a food-migrant, 

 that it did not continue in one place, thereby militating 

 against its preservation in specially protected areas. But its 

 migrations were the result of its immense horJes and conse- 

 quent scarcity of food in any one locality, and we can scarcely 

 believe that a small colony amply provided with a sufficiency 

 of beech-nuts, acorns, and otiier provender would have left 

 their breeding-grounds for the mere lust of wandering. 

 Other objections, too, may be advanced, such as the facilities, 

 especially in former times in the States, for indiscriminate 

 shooting, just when the fate of the species was apparently 

 trembling in the balance. Yet in spite of all such objec- 

 tions, in spite of the untold slaughter of thousands upon 

 thousands by every means, legal and illegal, I still imagine 

 we have not yet fathomed the secret of this piweon's 

 complete extermination. 



