EXTINCT PASSENGER PIGEON 
46o 
what, and the tree in the middle distance is absent. But in the back¬ 
ground we find the same scene as in Goodrich, apart from a few trivial 
changes. This cut is on page 28 of Volume I. of Nuttall—the Land 
Birds—the account of the Wild Pigeon being on pages 628 to 635 in¬ 
clusive. As this volume is dated 1832, or twenty-nine years before the 
Goodrich volume was published, it is evident that a still earlier cut 
of the kind existed, which was drawn upon by both the authors, or, 
what is more likely, Goodrich’s engravers or his artist made up a wild 
pigeon scene for the work, and copied Nuttall’s figure in the fore¬ 
ground, simply turning it to the right and slightly reducing it. Such 
procedures were by no means uncommon in those times—a fact one 
soon appreciates after studying the various published pictures of the 
Wild Pigeon. Nuttall acknowledges who engraved for him in his 
Preface to Volume I., on page vi., where he says: “The wood engrav¬ 
ings, not sufficiently numerous in consequence of their cost, have been 
executed by Mr. Bowen, of Boston, and Mr. Hall, in the employ of 
Messrs. Carter and Andrews, of Lancaster.” Cambridge was the place 
of publication. 
To illustrate the word “pigeon” or “passenger-pigeon,” we some¬ 
times find our extinct wild one selected for the purpose, and a good 
example of this is seen in the case of the “Century Dictionary,” where 
Thompson-Seton gives us a figure that is far above the average of such 
cuts in points of excellence. 
Perhaps Wilson’s rather quaint but attractive figure of the bird has 
been more extensively used as the basis for smaller cuts than that of 
any other artist. For example, Tenney used it in his text-book on 
zoology, and Coues, borrowing it from him, reproduced it on page 711 
of Volume II. of the fifth edition of his “Key to North American Birds.” 
To some extent, this cut was altered; for, as we know, Wilson repre¬ 
sented his wild pigeon as standing on the top of a sawn-off stump of a 
tree, while the cuts in Tenney’s and in Coues have the bird standing on 
the ground. In doing this, no change was made in the posing of 
the feet. 
As we know, T. M. Brewer published an edition of Wilson’s “Amer¬ 
ican Ornithology'’ in 1852; and of all the colored plates known to me, 
the ones illustrating this work are the most unsatisfactory and incor¬ 
rectly colored. They were reduced from the plates in Wilson’s folio 
edition to a three-half, six-half size; and in my personal copy of this 
work, the plate carrying the wild pigeon is so inserted as to cause the 
bird to be up-side down. It has been tinted a curious shade of purple, 
with pale purple outer tail feathers, and with a bright pink breast. In 
this respect Audubon fared much better; for, with the exception of a 
few indifferent cuts based on his magnificent plate of a pair of Wild 
Pigeons, the latter has been reproduced in color in several works, a 
