The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-03-08

wing. In numbers it was, to even th'
 miles long throngs of the buffalo, as
 thousand to one. The tens of thou
 sands slain at the ''roosts" made no per
 ceptible diminution in it's ranks. It dlt
 not die from epidemic disease, because
 it's bodies were never found or hearc
 of. It did not perish through lack o1 fecundity or wholesale sterilization o1 the eggs. It simply rose in gargantuar bands year after year and went to other lands.
 When the wild pigeon began to disap- pear it disappeared with unexampleo rapidity. That it could not have been killed out" by human agency is testl- fled to by a single observation made py the naturalist, Wilson. He estimatee the length of one column of these birds which passed over him at 240 miles, ana the number at not less than 2,000,ooo,- coo. The extraordinary numbers or the birds are not applicable. No man can say how it's hordes got such start. It's eggs were subject to the effects or weather and to the depreciation or nest robbing animals, as are the eggs or other birds. It laid but two at sit ting and matched but once year. It's wonderfully swift flight protected it much, of course, and it's young attained ability to fly in little while They were out of the nest and gone in hve weeks after the parent began to sit. ! Even taking these things into account, | however, the billions and billions or the birds remain unaccounted for. They left North America in the space of ten years for two reasons. They got tired of continual assaults upon their roosts, and the destruction of the forests robbed them of much of their food supply They were passionateiy fond of the beech nut, for instance, and so long as the eastern slopes of the Alleghanies bore beeches in plenty the pigeons swarmed in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and other Eastern States. When the beech trees went down the pigeons moved west, and when the forests of the West were denuded of mast-bear- ing timber, they went South, never, 1t is thought, to return, It will be seen suoUI!q u! p9I9qmnu pI!q 8 lBql GIIpBeI requires a tremendous food supply, and it is not to be conjectured that one with the phenomenal flight capacity of the wild pigeon would remain a barren county to starve
 Contrary to the popular impression, however, the passenger pigeon is not wholly extinct in North Amerca. Here and there scattered bands survive, just as Buffalo Jones" has corralled a few heads of degenerate bisons. Edward B, Clarke a naturalist of Chicago, saw wild pigeon in Lincoln Park, that city, five years ago. It has been twenty-five years since the abandonment of the great Indian Territory ''roost,' the last of it's kind in North America. Three years ago some hunters on the Illinois river found flock of a dozen, and shot a cock and a hen. A flock of fourteen is thought to exiGt now in Wisconsin It escaped from confinement in Milwau- kee. A. Fugelberg of oshkosh, this State saw different f1ocks two years ago. He writes: T saw the pigeons on August 14, between and o'clock a. m. They flew from Fisherman's Point across the bay to Stony Beach, on the west side of Lake Winnebago These pigeons of the 14th of August flew in flocks from twenty to seventy-five. l saw only seven focks but others may have passed before I noticed the flight. Two flocks came within gunshot Others were from one-quarter to one-half mile away. In the early part of September I was hunting prairie chickens when I came across farmer who told me he had seen a flock of pigeons a few days before. This was on the north shore of Lake Butte des Morts." An other man reports eight wild pigeons shot at in Northern Louisiana last win ter.
 Stanley Waterloo of Chicago has been much interested in the fate of the pige- on and for fifteen years has been en- deavoring to place the vanished swarms. He has been in correspondence with American Consuls in all of the re- publics to the south of us. It was, of apparent that the birds, if alive, must have gone South. They could not the climate of the subArctic | regions and they would not cross the ocean. Indeed, the pigeon manifested always great reluctance to surmount- ing any natural barrier. Going over the Alleghanies was the best it ever lid in that line, and it refused to pass | the ROCKIES, lHOuSH there were ITCH | 'orests on the Pacific slope. MT. Water | oo has been deceived many times by | reports of the presence in | arge numbers of the pigeons he sought. )nce they were reported in southern California in swarms. Again came posi- i've intelligence that they were in Mexi- | 70. It was found in each instance that . he bird was the common band-tailed f pigeon of Mexico. At last. however, he las received information which in his opinion, settles the question, The let CTS, which come from Chilli and Peru, Ire circumstantial and are accompanied | ,y exact descriptions of the birds. The f. pigeons are supposed to have followed he isthmus down, after going over Central America, and to have crossed he continuation of the Rockies at it's owest point about the location of the bortive Panama Canal.
 
 BEEF RAISING IN FLORIDA.
 That the South should rival the West