Ellsworth American., 1906-07-25
The loss is distributed among various
PRODUCTS as follows.
THE PASSENGER PIGEON.
Evidence That This Bird, Once SO
Numerous, Il Returning.


Numerous, Il Returning.
Every bird lover over forty years of age,
can remember the passenger pigeon. and
has felt grieved at its disappearance. Just
now John Burroughs, the eminent nsiur-
alis,, announces that be saw a ticck OF
more than q hundred this spring. Had
some other man seen these birds and re-
ported them We would doubt, but one so
familiar with bird life and forms as Mr..
Burroughs can hardly be mistaken.
The passenger pigeon WAS once the
characteristic bird OF American woods
from ocean TO ocean. Migratory only in
the sense that its flock movement was
governed by the search for food, its range
took II into every remote region Of the
land. The works of Audubon and Wilson
are filled with accounts of the magnitude
OF the fiock and the distance OF their pas
sage, accounts hard TO believe were they
not substansiated by the entire credihility
Of these authorities and corroboraled by
the tales OF explorers and travellers and
the records Of pioneer settlement from the
App&iachiAns across the great Mississippi
Valley TO the Rockies.
II was no unusual sight to observe Aocks
on the wing ten miles In length. Record
has been preserved ola aight In which the
birds were closely packed in column
mile in front and i5o miles Ia file. When
they roasted for the night the limbs OF
stout trees snapped under the weight.
The noise of their eooing was as the pur-
ring of a million drums. In their great
breeding haunts, forests of many hun
dreds of square miles, as many as hun
dred nests were counted to the single tree.
Utterly harmless TO the pioneer farmer
on mountain and prairie, in fact, valu-
able assistant in clearing his plantation
of weeds had man but had sense to recog-
nize IL, this valuable game bird was looked
upon as no more than meat, meat in gross,
and no more considered than are the
cattle when they start upon the runway
that leads them to the various processes
OF the packing houses. Not content with
the destruction that the gun could ac-
complish in those days when game laws
were not, the people attacked the great
fiocks with every implement that could be
made to kill. They clubbed the life out
Of the pigeons wherever they could reach
them, they chopped down trees that the
birds might be smashed in the fall, they
suffoeated them with pots of burning
birthstone under their roosts. They ate
what they could, they salted away in
brine all for which they could scrape to-
gether cooperage, they fed them to their
hogs; and still the fiocks returned year
after year by millions; even such murder
seemed to produce net the slightest effect.
Then came the day of reckoning. One
year the pigeons were found in their us
ual numbers, the next there were none.
What became of them has remained an
unsoived mystery. Some have attempted
to explain the sudden vanishing on a
theory that all the birds were caught in n
norther when over the Gulf of Mexico
and swept out OF existence upon the sea.
II will serve as well as any other excuse
for phenomenon which otherwise has no
explanation. From that day to this there
have been no pigeon flights, and only
rarely has solitary bird been seen lonely
upon the wide ranges of its former abund-
ance.
What Mr.. Burroughs now relates gives
hope that the birds may return. The
hock which he reports was flying strong
and with the characteristic rhythm once
so familiar. They are returning to pro-
lection. The game laws will stay the
hand OF reckless man afieId with the gun,
and the true sportsman would as soon
commit fratieide as bring one OF the re-
turning wanderers to his bag. Their
fecundity is sufficient to re-esta bllsh their
numbers II only they are protected. They
mate as many as three times in the year,
and the young birds pass rapidly through