THE PASSENGER PIGEON, 



F the reader is interested in num- 

 bers, he will appreciate the 

 statement written about 1808 

 by Wilson, who estimated that 

 a flock of Wild Pigeons observed 

 by him near Frankfort, Kentucky, 

 contained at least 2,230,272,000 indiv- 

 uals. If he is also interested in the 

 aspect presented by these birds in 

 flight, cloud-like in form and apparently 

 boundless in extent, he will read the 

 full and graphic descriptions given by 

 Audubon. In 1863, when the writer 

 was a boy, he remembers seeing the 

 birds brought to town in barrels and old 

 at a price which did not justify trans- 

 portation to market. What appeared 

 to be a cloud, dark and lowering, was 

 not infrequently seen approaching, soon 

 to shut out the light of the sun, until 

 the birds which composed it, on the 

 way to or from their feeding or roost- 

 ing places, had passed on. Now hear 

 what Major Bendire, as late as 1892, 

 says : "It looks now as if their total 

 extermination might be accomplished 

 within the present century. The only 

 thing which retards their complete 

 extinction is that it no longer pays to 

 net these birds, they being too scarce 

 for this now, at least in the more set- 

 tled portions of the country, and also, 

 perhaps, that from constant and 

 unremitting persecution on their 

 breeding grounds, they have changed 

 their habits somewhat, the majority 

 no longer breeding in colonies, but 

 scattering over the country and breed- 

 ing in isolated pairs." 



The natural home of the Wild Pigeon 

 is within the wooded lands, and they 

 are seldom met with upon the broad 



prairies. Audubon observed that it 

 was almost entirely influenced in its 

 migrations by the abundance of its 

 food, that temperature had little to do 

 with it, as they not infrequently moved 

 northward in large columns as early 

 as the yth of March, with a tempera- 

 ture twenty degrees below the freezing 

 point. 



" The Wild Pigeons are capable of 

 propelling themselves in long con- 

 tinued flights and are known to move 

 with an almost incredible rapidity, 

 passing over a great extent of country 

 in a very short time." Pigeons have 

 been captured in the state of New 

 York with their crops still filled with 

 the undigested grains of rice that must 

 have been taken in the distant fields 

 of Georgia or South Carolina, appar- 

 ently proving that they must have 

 passed over the intervening space 

 within a very few hours. Audubon 

 estimated the rapidity of their flight 

 as at least a mile a minute. 



The Wild Pigeon is remarkable for 

 its ease and grace, whether on the 

 ground or the limbs of trees. Though 

 living, moving, and feeding together in 

 large companies, they mate in pairs, 

 Several broods are reared in a season, 

 nesting beginning very early in the 

 spring. The nests are placed on trees, 

 being a slight platform structure of 

 twigs, without any material for lining 

 whatever. Two white eggs are laid. 



Mr. Goss says (1891) that the Pas- 

 senger Pigeon is still to be found in 

 numbers within the Indian Territory 

 and portions of the southern states, 

 and in Kansas a few breed occasionally 

 in the Neosho Valley. 



