THE PASSENGER PIGEON 



( Ectopistes migratorius. ) 



There are few, if any, birds of which long this appearance would continue. It 



it is more difficult and painful to write was then about half past one o'clock. He 



than the Passenger or Wild Pigeon, for says: "I sat for more than an hour, but 



it forcibly calls to mind the inhuman instead of a diminution of this prodigious 



side of man's nature. This beautiful procession, it seemed rather to increase 



bird, which is now very rare and per- both in number and rapidity ; and, anx- 



haps nearly extinct, was only a few years ious to reach Frankfort before night, I 



ago not only common but very abundant, rose and went on. About four o'clock in 



In the year 1892 Captain Bendire fully the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky riv- 



appreciated the critical situation as re- er, at the town of Frankfort, at which 



gards the Passenger Pigeon. He then time the living torrent above seemed 



said : "In fact, the extermination of the as numerous and as ' extensive as ever. 



Passenger Pigeon has progressed so Long after this I observed them in large 



rapidly during the past twenty years bodies, that continued to pass for six or 



that it looks now as if their total exter- eight minutes, and these again were fol- 



mination might be accomplished within lowed by other detached bodies, all mov- 



the present century. The only thing ing in the same southeast direction, till 



which retards their complete extinc- after six in the evening." Mr. Wilson 



tion is that it no longer pays to net these estimated that this flight of Pigeons 



birds, they being too scarce for this now, must have included many more than 



at least in the more settled portions of two thousand two hundred millions of 



the country, and also, perhaps, that from individuals. 



constant and unremitting persecution on If the Passenger or Wild Pigeons 



their breeding grounds, they have were so abundant, what was the cause 



changed their habits somewhat, the ma- of their relatively sudden disappear- 



jority no longer breeding in colonies, ance? The last known stronghold of 



but scattering over the country and these birds was in Michigan and it was 



breeding in isolated pairs." there that the last flight of any magni- 



Both Wilson and Audubon tell us of tude was observed. This was in 1888. 



immense flocks which they observed The last group of Pigeons of any impor- 



many years ago. Mr. Wilson speaks of tance, in relation to numbers, nesting in 



having counted upwards of ninety nests Michigan was noted in 1881, a short dis- 



on single trees, in a breeding place in the tance west of Grand Traverse. It is 



state of Kentucky. Near Frankfort, in said that the area occupied was small 



the same state, he saw an immense num- and only about eight miles long. This 



ber and says: "They were flying, with species has been practically, if not quite 



great steadiness and rapidity, at a height exterminated by the unsportsmanlike 



beyond gunsljot, in several strata deep, methods of hunting them. So numerous 



and so closely together that, could shot and countless were the Pigeons in the 



have reached them, one discharge could flocks at the nesting and roosting places 



not have failed of bringing down several that a gun seemed a totally useless wea- 



individuals. From right to left, far as pon for the hunt. Wholesale methods 



eye could reach, the breadth of this vast of destruction were followed, and they 



procession extended, seeming every- were caught in nets, or knocked to the 



where equally crowded." Curiosity de- earth with poles. It is said that in the 



termined Mr. Wilson to find out how Michigan nesting period of 1881 at least 



