HEREDITY, VARIATIOX 125 



tiiry. It inhabited the whole of the wooded parts of Xorth 

 America from Mexico, within the tropic?, to the northern 

 shores of Ilndson's Bay, and its former history is now tlie more 

 interesting, because it has already become a creature of the 

 past. In the American periodical. The Auk, of last year, is 

 the following note : 



''The Passenger Pigeox — only One Pair left. — I have 

 taken a special interest in the remaining birds belonging to the 

 Milwaukee and Cincinnati flocks which have been in confinement 

 for many years. In my last remarks on the species (Auk, 1908, 

 p. 18) I stated that the remnants of these flocks then numbered 

 but seven birds, with little or no chance of further reproduction. 

 The number is now reduced to a single pair, and doubtless the 

 months are numbered when this noble bird must be recorded as 

 extinct. — Ruthven Deane, Chicago, 111.'' 



In view of the above statement it ^\i\\ be both interesting 

 and instructive to state briefly what were the facts as to the 

 numbers of these birds about a hundred years ago (1811). 

 Alexander Wilson gives the following account in his American 

 Ornithology : 



" The roosting-places are always in the woods, and sometimes 

 occupy a large extent of forest. "When they have occupied one of 

 these places for some time tlie appearance it presents is surprising. 

 The ground is covered to the depth of several inches with their 

 dung; all the tender grass and underwood destroyed; the surface 

 strewed with large limbs of trees broken down by the weight of tlie 

 birds collecting one above another ; and the trees themselves for 

 thousands of acres killed as completely as if girdled with an axe. 

 The marks of their desolation remain for many years. When these 

 roosts are first discovered, the inhabitants from considerable dis- 

 tances visit them in the night, with guns, clubs, long poles, pots of 

 sulphur, and various other engines of destruction. In a few liours 

 they fill many sacks and load horses with them. 



"The breeding-place differs from the roost in its greater extent. 

 In the western countries, viz., the States of Ohio. Kentucky, and 

 Indiana, these are genei-allv in backwoods, and often extend in 



