92 The Passenger Pigeon 



Cross Village and other lake ports, which were as many 

 more. Added to this were the daily express shipments 

 in bags and boxes, the wagon loads hauled away by the 

 shotgun brigade, the thousands of dead and wounded 

 ones not secured, and the myriads of squabs dead in the 

 nest by trapping off of the parent birds soon after hatch- 

 ing (for a young pigeon will surely die if deprived of 

 its parents during the first week of its life), and we 

 have at the lowest possible estimate a grand total of 

 1,000,000,000 pigeons sacrificed to Mammon during 

 the nesting of 1878. 



The task undertaken in behalf of justice and human- 

 ity was a Herculean one, but backed up by such true 

 sportsmen as A. H. Mershon and Wm. J. Loveland, 

 of East Saginaw, and Judge Holmes, S. A. Van Dusen, 

 D. H. Fitzhugh, Jr., and others of Bay City, as well 

 as by the sentiment of every humane citizen of the State, 

 we could not do other than follow the advice of Davy 

 Crockett, and being sure we were right, we decided to 

 "go ahead." The question of a wise protection to the 

 game and fish of our State is one In which the writer 

 holds a deep and fervent interest, and in serving this 

 cause, he will swerve from no duty, nor shrink from 

 consequences in the discharge of that duty. 



The foregoing article is the result of an honest con- 

 viction that the best interests of the State demanded a 

 full exposure of the methods by which the pigeon is 

 threatened with extinction. 



