170 OUR SOUTHERN BIRDS 



bill, the Flamingo, the egrets, and the Ivorybilled 

 Woodpecker spread their beautiful wings yet a 

 little time unmolested. 



Let the disappearance of these winged lives 

 from their one-time haunts lead us to set a 

 higher value on those that remain. 



PASSENGER PIGEON 



Have you not heard old people tell of the 

 great flocks of Wild or Passenger Pigeons that 

 used to bridge the sky like a summer cloud? 

 This bird, once so abundant in this country that 

 w r hole boatloads of the bodies were sold in New r 

 York markets at one cent apiece, is now but a 

 memory, like the American Buffalo w r hose once 

 innumerable herds have vanished from our plains. 



No wings of the earth were swifter, stronger, 

 and more graceful than those of this Pigeon in 

 flight. It was larger by several inches than the 

 Mourning Dove, and more erect and active. Its 

 colors were brighter and its whole habit and 

 bearing more energetic. 



James Lane Allen, who has written so charm- 

 ingly of the Cardinal and of other Southern 

 birds, recalls to us as follows this well-nigh for- 

 gotten glory of our land : 



"What Wilson records he saw of bird-life 

 in Kentucky a hundred years ago reads to us 

 now as fables of the marvelous, of the incredible 



