THE VANISHED PASSENGER PIGEON 85 



covered the earth when they alighted in the fields to feed, and 

 darkened the sky when they flew. 



As usual, that great abundance of wild life provoked great 

 slaughter. Migrating Pigeons were killed by wholesale meth- 

 ods. While breeding they were attacked in their nesting- 

 places, and in an incredibly short time the great flocks van- 

 ished. As in the case of the blotting out of the great northern 

 buffalo-herd, in 1884, many persons have wondered, and do 

 still, whether the great flocks of Pigeons have not migrated, 

 and found a permanent home elsewhere. There is not a 

 single fact on which to base either belief or supposition that 

 the Passenger Pigeon exists in Mexico, Central America or 

 elsewhere. 



Among naturalists, the blotting out of this interesting 

 species has been a source of sincere regret. As usual, no one 

 thought of protecting it until it was entirely too late. 



When the first edition of this Natural History was pub- 

 lished (1904) the author permitted himself to believe that 

 there was a chance that the Passenger Pigeon still survived 

 in a wild state, and actually was coming back to our bird 

 fauna. The many circumstantial reports of pigeons observed 

 seemed to justify those conclusions. 



Vain hope! That view was entirely too optimistic, and 

 predicated altogether too much on faulty observations, all 

 of which were entirely erroneous. We now place this bird 

 in the totally extinct class, not only because it is extinct in a 

 wild state, but because only one solitary individual, a nineteen- 

 year-old female in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, now re- 

 mains alive. One living specimen, and a few skins, skeletons 



