Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1906-06-14
A RETURNING WANORERER.
New York sun

New York sun
When so truthful a naturalist as John
Burroughs reports the beginning of the
return Of the Wild or passenger pigeon. his
statement is entitled to reader accept
ance than one would care to give to any
oil the utterances OF the more popular
school Of natunlists who pretend that
they have learned the beast talk Mr..
Burroughs says that in the present open
ing season a flock OF more than a hundred
OF the long-vanished wild pigeon has been
seen in the Hudson highlands and clearly
identified as Ectopistes migratorius.
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, It's
range took it into every remote region
Of the land. The work of Audubon and
Wilson are filed with accounts of the
magnitude of the locks and the distance
OF their passage, accounts hard to believe
were they not substantiated by the entire
credibility of these authorities and cor
roborated by the tales of explorers and
travellers and the records of pioneer
settlement from the Appalachians across
the great MississippiVa TO the Rockies.
IL was no unusual sight to observe
flocks on the wing ten miles IN length
Record has been preserved of a flight in
which the birds were closely packed in
a column a mile in front and $50 miles
in file When they roasted for the night
the limbs of stout trees snapped under
the weight. The noise of their cooing
was as the purring OF a million drums. In
their great breeding haunts, forests of
many hundreds of square miles, as many
as a hundred nests were counted to- the
single tree.
Utterly harmless to the pioneer farmer
on mountain and prairie, in fact a valu-
able assistant in clearing his plantation
of weeds had man but had the sense to
recognize 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 1.-THE packinghouses. Not
content with the destruction that the
gun could accomplish in those days when
game laws were not, the people attacked
the great hocks 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 suifocated 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 together cooperage, they
| fed them to the hogs; and still the
/ nocks returned year after year by mill
| lions. even such murder seemed to pro-
! d,,oe not the slightest effect
Then came the day Of reckoning. One
wear the pigeons we're found in their
/ usual numbers, the next there were none.
What became of them has remained
an unsolved mystery. Some have at
tempted TO explain the sudden vanish
ing on a theory that all the birds were
caught in a norther when over the Gull
| of Mexico and swept out of existence
upon the sea. IL will serve as well as
any other excuse for a phenomenon
which otherwise has no explanation
From that day to this, nearly three
quarters of century, there have been
no pigeon flights, and only rarely has a
solitary bird been seen lonely upon the
wide ranges of its former abundance.
What Mr.. Burroughs now relates gives
hone that the birds may return. The
]
and with the characteristic rhythm onc'
al familiar. They are returning tS
nrotection. The Game laws will stay
tbe hand of the reckless man afield witt
the gun, and the true sportsman woulc
as Soon commit fratricide as bring on'
of the returning wanderers to his bag
Their fecundity is sufficient to re-estab
lish their numbers if only they are pro
tected. They mate as many as thre'
times in the year, and the young bird
pass rapidly through the fiedgling stag
md quickly learn to shift for themselves
, Under such protection as the game law
grant in most States and Territories an'
n the adjacent provinces OF the Dominion
there is at last a good ground for the en-
oouraging belief that the Passenge
pigeon may once more be found IN ou
woods.