18 CHEONOUOGY AND INDEX. 



means of shipment for hides. For a time the slaughter raged almost 

 uninterruptedly, and in six years the southern herd was almost exter- 

 minated. With the completion of the Northern Pacific Railroad in 

 1881 the fate of the northern herd was hastened, and practically the 

 last survivors were destroyed seven years later. 



It is interesting to note that a close season was first established 

 in Idaho in 1864, in Wyoming in 1871, followed by Montana in 

 1872, Nebraska, 1875, Colorado, 1877, New Mexico, 1880, North 

 and South Dakota, 1883. Neither Kansas nor Texas ever estab- 

 lished any close season, the reason for which is apparent. With the 

 building of the Kansas Pacific and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa 

 Fe Railroads in the early seventies, an important trade in buffalo 

 hides and meat arose at several points in southern Kansas, notably 

 at Dodge City, Leavenworth, and Wichita. From these centers per- 

 sistent and concerted attacks were made on the southern herd 

 between 1871. and 1874; and so long as buffalo killing remained 

 profitable it was impossible to secure any legislation which would 

 interfere with the traffic. With the disappearance of the southern 

 herd about 1874 the need for a close season vanished. Briefly 

 stated, not the slightest protection was afforded in the way of legis- 

 lation in the States in which buffalo were most abundant and in 

 which, tlirough its accessibility, the species was most quickly exter- 

 minated. 



The enormous flocks of wild pigeons which formerly darkened the 

 skies in the States of the upper Mississippi Valley, New York, and 

 southern New England had already begun to decrease by the middle 

 of the last century. The last great nesting in New York occurred 

 in 1868, the last large roosting in 1875, and the last great nesting 

 in Michigan — probably the last anywhere on the continent — in 1878. 

 During the time of abundance no serious effort was made to protect 

 the birds. The first legislation on wild pigeons seema to have been 

 an act passed in Massachusetts in 1848, which, instead of protecting 

 the birds, protected the netters against molestation in carrying on 

 their business. In 1857 a committee of the State Legislature of Ohio 

 in their report on a game bill declared: 



The passenger pigeon needs no protection. Wonderfully prolific, having the 

 vast forests of the North as its breeding grounds, travelling hundreds of miles 

 in search of food, it is here to-day and elsewhere to-morrow, and no ordinary destruc- 

 tion can lessen them or be missed from the myriads that are yearly produced. 



The last wild pigeon in Ohio was killed March 24, 1900, near 

 Sargents, Pike County (Dawson, Birds of Ohio, p. 427, 1903), and 

 10 years later the sole survivor of the species known was a captive 

 bird in the gardens of the Zoological Society of Cincinnati. 



Wild pigeon nesting and roosting grounds were first protected in 

 New York in 1862 by a provision prohibiting persons from disturb- 



