101 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



conspicuous bird, easily 

 seen at a long distance, and 

 was shot in numbers for the 

 markets, and I shall always 

 believe that its extermina- 

 tion was largely due to its 

 being persistently hunted 

 by man. 



There are very few ex- 

 amples of this duck in our 

 museums not more than 

 five in the National Mu- 

 seum, with six or seven in 

 the American Museum of 

 Natural History; none of 

 its eggs are in existence. 

 Only a few of the eggs of 

 the Great Auk have been 

 preserved, and one of these 

 sold, some years ago, in 

 London at an auction, for 

 $1200. 



Within very recent time, 

 a large species of one of 

 our curlews has been exter- 

 minated by our gunners, as 

 shown by the late Mr. W. 

 W. Cooke. Many other 

 species of our birds are 

 being rapidly killed off in 

 the same merciless manner, 

 and among these are the 

 several very beautiful 

 quails or partridges of the 

 Pacific coast. 



Perhaps the best known 

 of all these instances, how- 

 ever, is the extermination of 

 our Passenger or Wild Pig- 

 eon. In the days of Audu- 

 bon, flocks of these birds 

 numbered a great many mil- 

 lions; they were often miles 

 wide, several hundred feet 

 deep, and flew at a high 

 rate of speed for days at a 

 time. A big forest fire in 

 Arkansas once destroyed 

 thousands upon thousands 

 of them the trees forming 

 High winds blew thousands 



THE LAST PASSENGER OR WILD PIGEON 



This picture of this beautiful bird, which is now entirely extinct, is a reproduc- 

 tion of a photograph, made by the author, of the mounted specimen of the last 

 wild pigeon (EctopisUs Migratorius) that existed upon this planet. The specimen 

 is on exhibition in the United States National Museum, to which institution it 

 belongs. It is here Riven about two-thirds natural size, and this photograph 

 of it appears for the first time. 



their roosts being burned, 

 of them into the Atlantic 



Ocean during their migra- 

 tions, into the Gulf of Mex- 

 ico, or the Great Lakes. But 

 millions upon millions of 

 them were slaughtered by 

 many at their regular roost- 

 ing-places, and at such 

 times untold thousands of 

 them were allowed to rot on 

 the ground. Often herds of 

 hogs were turned in upon 

 the dead and dying birds 

 to devour them. Quite 

 suddenly the species ceased 

 to exist it entirely dis- 

 appeared. 



At New Canaan, Con- 

 necticut, in 1872, I wit- 

 nessed the tremendous flight 

 of these big, blue pigeons; 

 I shot only comparatively 

 few of them, while hundreds 

 of gunners were shooting 

 them for the mere sport of 

 seeing them fall. My old 

 teacher of taxidermy, Mr. 

 James Jenkins, remembered 

 the countless millions of 

 these pigeons in the flights 

 in New York. He described 

 their alighting by thousands 

 upon thousands on the 

 upper part of Manhattan 

 Island, and on houses in 

 Newark, Harlem, and in the 

 outskirts of New York City 

 and Brooklyn. A number of 

 these birds were kept a few 

 years ago at the Zoological 

 Gardens, of Cincinnati, 

 Ohio; and the very last 

 Passenger Pigeon in the 

 world, a female "Martha" 

 died there early in Sep- 

 tember, 1915. That speci- 

 men was skinned by Mr. 

 William Palmer, of the U.S. 

 National Museum, mounted 

 by Mr. Nelson R. Wood, 

 taxidermist of the National Museum, and placed on a 

 special perch, in one of the cases in an exhibition hall. 



THAT wrapping twines which give thorough satisfac- 

 tion can be made from paper has been demonstrated 

 by experiments made by the Forest Products Labora- 

 tory at Madison, Wisconsin. Several hundred packages, 

 each containing a medium-sized book, were wrapped and 

 fastened with the lightest-weight paper twine and were 

 mailed to various points throughout the United States. 

 Reports show that practically every package was received 

 in good order and that in no case was there any damage 

 which could be charged as a fault of the twine. 



THERE were cut from the National Forests in the 

 fiscal year 1916, 604,920,000 board feet of timber. 

 Of this amount 119,483,000 board feet was cut 

 under free use privilege by 42,055 individuals. In all, 

 10,840 sales of timber were made, of which 97 per cent 

 were under $100 in value, indicating the extent to which 

 the homesteader, rancher, miner, small millman, and 

 others in need of a limited quantity of timber draw upon 

 the Forests. 



