MARTYR 205 



has progressed so rapidly during the last twenty years that 

 it looks now as if their (sic) total extermination might be 

 accomplished within the present century." This proph- 

 ecy has been only too well fulfilled. The passenger pigeon 

 is to-day as extinct as the great auk. 



One or at most two white eggs, laid on a rickety plat- 

 form of sticks in a tree, where they were visible from below, 

 would scarcely account for the myriads of pigeons once 

 seen, were not frequent nestings common throughout the 

 summer; and it is said the birds laid again on their return 

 South. Both of the devoted mates took regular turns at 

 incubating, the female between two o'clock in the after- 

 noon and nine or ten the next morning, daUy, leaving the 

 male only four or five hours sitting, according to Mr. 

 WilUam Brewster. "The males feed twice each day," he 

 says, "namely, from dayHght to about eight A. M., and 

 again late in the afternoon. The females feed only in the 

 forenoon. The change is made with great regularity as to 

 time, all the males being on the nest by ten o'clock a. m. 

 . . . The sitting bird does not leave the nest until the 

 bill of its incoming mate nearly touches its tail, the former 

 sHpping oflf as the latter takes its place. . . • Five 

 weeks are consumed by a single nesting. . . . Usually 

 the male pushes the young oflf the nest by force. The 

 latter struggles and squeals precisely like a tame squab, 

 but is finally crowded out along the branch, and after 

 further feeble resistance flutters down to the ground. 

 Three or four days elapse before it is able to fly well. 

 Upon leaving the nest it is often fatter and heavier than 

 the old birds; but it quickly becomes thinner and fighter, 

 despite the enormous quantity of food it consumes." 

 Before leaving the nest it was nourished with food brought 



