1 88 The Passenger Pigeon 



was fortunate enough to have experience with it living 

 or dead. Yet it was not exempt from the oppression 

 of its human foe, who has been instrumental, through 

 interference with the breeding and feeding grounds and 

 through a continued persecution and ruthless slaughter 

 for the market, in reducing the species almost beyond 

 the hope of salvation. 



The Passenger Pigeon, the species under observation, 

 was first described under the genus Columba, or type 

 pigeons, but subsequently Swainson separated it from 

 these and placed it under the genus Ectopistes because 

 of the greater length of wing and tail. 



Generically named Ectopistes, meaning moving about 

 or wandering, and specifically named Migratoria, mean- 

 ing migratory, we have a technical name implying not 

 only a species of migrating annually to and from their 

 breeding ground, but one given to moving about from 

 season to season, selecting the most congenial environ- 

 ment for both breeding and feeding. 



. . . With all the knowledge we have possessed of 

 the unestimable multitudes which existed during the 

 early part of the last century, and with their decline, 

 begun and noted generally in the later sixties and early 

 seventies, we still find that no steps whatever were taken 

 to prevent their possible depletion, and few records of 

 any value are made of the continuance or speed of this 

 decrease; and not until the last decade of the century 

 do we awake to the fact that the pigeons are gone be- 



