IOWA ORNITHOLOGIST. 



mating and nidification took 

 place. Then everything was aHve 

 with our Pigeon of the past, now 

 they are seldom seen and are not 

 known to nest in our state. The 

 last of these beautiful birds that 

 I remember seeing was a small 

 flock of about twenty that passed 

 over while we were taking one of 

 those delightful trips in a skiff 

 down the Mississippi between 

 Burlington and Dallas in the fall 

 of '91. 



Another bird that has entirely 

 disappeared is the Carolina Par- 

 rakeet. This sociable bird, al- 

 ways gathered in flocks, would 

 range as far north as Spirit Lake, 

 where it would frequently remain 

 until the cold snows and stormy 

 blizzards from the north would 

 drive it southward. It is said to 

 have been not an unfrequent bird 

 in the state. Its food in winter 

 consisted chiefly of the seed of 

 the Cocklebur, but it most loved 

 the juice of young corn and would 

 do great destruction to this fruit, 

 and this was one of the causes of 

 its extermination. Its nature was 

 so peculiar that where one of its 

 number was killed or wounded, 

 the others would gather around 

 it with shrill cries and in this 

 way the entire flock could easily 

 be annihilated. The last of these 

 flocks was presented to the State 



University of Iowa and has since 

 been mounted by Mr. Ridgeway 

 in a beautiful snow scene. 



We must now come before the 

 public of Iowa, as a moralist and 

 lecturer, in a sense so far as the 

 protection of those specimens is 

 concerned that are fast disap- 

 pearing and others which are like- 

 ly to. There is an inherent sel- 

 fishness in man, that crops out 

 nowhere stronger than in the lit- 

 tle word "possession." If the 

 tendency of those, who have the 

 knowledge of the worth of some 

 of our birds, not only as their 

 usefulness in a general sense is 

 concerned, but their intrinsic val- 

 ue, and would do that in their 

 power and deny themselves the 

 little gain to be derived there- 

 from, exerting all their influence 

 to protect instead of destroying, 

 we should soon have plenty where 

 we now have scarcity. We 

 know from experience that it is 

 hard to let a valuable specimen 

 escape, yet we have done so 

 when it was in the interest of 

 non-extermination. However, 



the scientist is not the one that 

 does this great damage, but the 

 small dealer, the collector who 

 rejects every idea except gain. 

 We see this mostly when a hunt- 

 er goes out and brings such a 

 bird as the Whooping Crane to 



