The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-08
WHERE WILD PIGEON WENT.
THE BIRD IN MIGHTY BLOCKS IN
 THE FAR, TAR SOUTH.


 THE FAR, TAR SOUTH.
 Mystery of It's Sudden Disappearance
 From This Continent Seems to Hay,
 Been Cleared at Last-It Has Found
 Food Is Plenty and sportsmen Ar,
 Few.
 A dispatch to the New York Sun
 says: For several years past persons ir this part of the West have been investi-
 gating the disappearance of the wild pigeon, or passenger pigeon" which used to nhabit the United States in countless millions and disappeared even more suddenly and completely than the buffalo. There was an apparent paral- Tel between the fates of these two spe- cies of game, but it was only apparent. That is all. But the wild pigeon, while it has been swept out of this country as if a giant storm from the north had driven it forth, still exists, It seems to have been definitely established within the year that the myriads which used to make dark our heavens are now be- low the equator on the western slope of the Andes, flying south when the sum- mer comes and north when the winter comes, exactly reversing their former migration when with us. As if it's eX- perience with men in this country had taught it to beware of them, it seems ito be inhabiting only the most secluded regions of the Andes finding in isolated Peruvians and Chilans such men as they need no fear, since there is little or no sport in them. Uhere, finding their food amid the giant timber which grows just below the snow line, unhar ried by human and other foes, they are multiplying into their old millions, sub ject to decimation only by disease and by the superf1uity of their own numbers
 It has been said that the wild pigeon was the swiftest thing that ever cleft American air, but this is a mistake. For individual speed the teal held and still holds, the record. There is nothing which comes near it in velocity. The wild pigeon, was however, the swiftest thing which flew in large f1ocks or rather, to be exact, large fiocks of wild pigeons made better time than large flocks of any other fowls or birds. The teal, in f1ocks of five hundred to a thou sand, covers 100 miles an hour, the mal- lard covers S5 miles; sprigtails, canvas backs redheads, widgeons, gadWells butterballs and minor species cover be- tween 75 and S5 miles; the wild goose travels steadily at from 70 to 75 miles an hour but the passenger pigeon, in bands of 100000 would put 120 miles be- hind it hour after hour with no ap parent fatigue and certainly with no slackening of progress.
 It was a most expert flyer in mass and each one of the thousands kept his distance with unfailing regularity. In high winds and low, through fogs, snows and rains, in heat or cold the vast swarms darted Along and there was never a clashing of plump bodies, nor so much as the contact of wing tips. These bodies of migrating pigeons were so thick that they shaded the earth above which they flew so completely that twilight seemed to have fallen There was no catching glimpse of the sky through them Probably from the uppermost bird to the lower there was a space of fifty yards. So solidly, swift 1y, steadily, like a buzzing cloud they darted over the land and when the sun set they had put a thosand miles be- tween them and the starting point of the morning. It was their habit in mi ] grafton to fly far above gunshot, most l often at height of 1900 feet They seemed to find at that altitude an air stratum best suited to their purposes.
 The watcher, standing in some wide | brown field, saw suddenly appear upon the far horizon a small dun cloud in no way different in appearance from any other cloud. It grew in size with [ strange rapidity Almost as he drew his | third breath it had resolved itself into | a mass of birds and then, as he gazed | and said to himself: Wild pigeons!" | it passed above his head and melted | into the distance. There came down on | him a faint shimmering murmur, a | sort of keen tremor of sound made by ] the tens of thousands of pulsating pin ions, a shadow fell upon him, passed | and was gone, It was a miracle of [ speed. The steadiness. the persistence | of it's flight was not less remarkable than it's velocity. As certain forms of [ wandering termites are not to be turn ed back, or to one side, by any obstacle going over, under or straight through any house which bars their path, so the passenger pigeons struck a bee-line when they started to the south and stopped not, nor turn for anything ami mate or inanimate. If one of the vast armies had suddenly encountered cliff uprearing in the path, thousands of them would have dashed themselves to death. The number which turned back, or to one side, would have |. been small.
 This obstinacy of direction was one of the strangest things in nature, and no man could ask for a more absorbing sight than a pigeon flight harried by a dozen hawks and falcons. The birds of prey met the oncoming horde. They never presumed to chase it. Towering high, they waited until the vanguard had passed under them then struck down at the practically solid mass be- heath, soaring upward immediately with dead victims in their talons. Off, , ten, in seeming wantonness, they would strike again and again with beak and , claw and dead birds would come sift- ing lamely down and out of the mass , In dozens Bronze and gray feathers , aoated upon the wind. The man below , could know what was happening only ,