The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-06-04
A Returning Wauderer.

When 80 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
of the %utterances Of the more popular
school Of naturalists who pretend that
they have learned the beast talk. Mr..
BURROUGHS says that in the present
opening 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 hat it's flock movement was
governed by the search for food, its
range took it into every remote region
OF the land. The works of AUDUBON
and WILSON are filled with accounts
of the magnitude of the fiocks and the
distance of their passage, accounts
hard to believe were they not substan-
tiated by the entire credibility of these
authorities and corroborated by the
tales of explorers and raveliers and the
records of pioneer settlement from the
Appalachians across the great Mississippi
Valley to the Rockies.
1t 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 cooling
was as the purring of a million drums, In
Their great breeding haunts, forests of
many hundreds Of square miles, as many
as &, hundred nests were counted to the
single tree.
Utterly harmless to the pioneer farmer
on mountain and prairie, in fact a valua-
BILE assistant in clearing his plantation
Of weeds had man but had the sense to
recognize it, 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 accomplish in those days when
game laws were not, the people attacked
the great focks with every implement
that could be made to kill, They dubbed
the life out Of the pigeons wherever they
could reach them, they chopped down
-S1. thot thn kirls rnirhf no opnochal
in the fall, they suffocated them with
pots Of burning birthstone under their
roosts. They ate what they could. they
! sailed away in brine all for which they
could scrape together oooperage, they
fed them to their hogs; and still the
hocks returned year after year by mill
ions; even such murder seemed to pro-
duoe not the slightest effect.
Then came the day of reckoning. One
year the pigeons were 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 we're
caught in a norther when over the Gulf
Of Mexico and swept out of existence
upon the sea. 1t will serve as we'll as
! any other excuse for a phenomenon.
which otherwise has no explanation.
From that day to this, nearly three
quarters of a century, there have been
no pigeon flights, and only rarely has a
solitary bird been seen lonely upon the
wide ranges Of it's former abundance.
What Mr.. BURROUGHS now relates
gives hope that the birds may return.
The flock which he reports was flying
strong and with the characteristic
rhythm once so familiar. They are
returning to protection. The game laws
will stay the hand of the reckless man
aheld with the gun, and the true sports
man would as soon commit fratricide as
bring one Of the returning wanderers
to his bag. Their fecundity is sufficient
to reestablish their numbers il only
! they are protected. They mate as MANY
as three times in the year, and the young
birds pass rapidly through the aedgling
stage and quickly learn to shift for
themselyes. Under such protection as