The Emmett index. [volume] (Emmett, Idaho) 1893-1925, 1914-01-29
The Judges Musings
WILD GEESE AND DUCKS UNDER GOVERNMENT PRO
lection

The wild passenger pigeon was once
very abundant in the United Gtates.
Many persons yet in middle life may
now remember having seen some of
these birds. To such it will be in
teresting to know that this bird is
now extinct, the last surviving one,
it is believed, having died in the Zoo
at Cincinnati last winter. So numer-
Gus were these birds at one time that
priests along the st. Lawrence were
accustomed to keep them from the
crops Of the French settlers by the use
of holy water, the ringing of church
bells, exorcisms, and other means of
discomfiting the emissaries of Satan.
An early ornithologist named Wilson
estimated that single flock seen by
him contained 2230 million pigeons
The following passage, taken from the
journal of the naturalist Audubon,
will indicate how numerous these
birds once were and suggest the chief
reason why they are now extinct:
In the autumn of 1918, | left my
house on the Ohio on my way to Lou
isville. In passing over the barrens
| observed the pigeons flying from
northeast to southwest in greater
numbers than | thought | had ever
seen them before, and feeling an in
clination to count the fiocks that
might pass within the reach of my
eye in one hour, | dismounted, seated
myself on an eminence and began to
mark with pencil, making dot for
Every flock that passed. In short
line, finding the task which | had UNI
lertaken impracticable, | rose and
counting the dots thus put down,
ound that 1853 had been made in Il ]
minutes. | travelled on and still met
more the farther | proceeded. The
ir was literally filled with pigeons;
he light of MONDAY was obscured as
" an eclipse, and the continued buzz
f wings had a tendency to hull my /
enses into repose. Before sunset l {
cached Louisville. The pigeons were
till passing in undiminished numbers {
nd continued to do so for three days t
4 succession. The people were all in
rms. The banks of the Ohio river
yere crowded with men and boys in !,
essantly shooting at the pigeons, |
hitch flew lower as they passed the |
iver. Multitudes were thus destroyed. i
or a week or more the population
ed on no other flesh than that of :
igeons and talked of nothing than l
igeons. v
The testimony of the early natural V
It's and other writer's show that, not a
My the wild pigeon, but the water 1
,wl abounded along the Atlantic sea- d
oard and other places where they are a
ow comparatively rare, and the rapid c
ecrease of wild ducks and geese in
lie Mississippi valley and elsewhere l
well within the remembrance of
rose living. The fate of the wild T.
geon and the threatened fate of wild f
wi and other edible birds has is
congress to inquire into the o
caps of best staying their destruc- d
on and increasing their number. The a
clean law, which went into effect n
st July, is designed to prevent the b.
footing of these birds except during "
limited time in the autumn. II
The rapid decrease in the number II
wild ducks and geese is due mainly la
two causes: % the diminishing OF
ca of the breeding grounds owing NJ
the westward and northward adj M
nee of settlement; and (2) the OF
lolesale slaughter by the market" 1T
inter- at the places where the birds 81
Ike up their winter quarters. The pc
mber of birds killed while migrat- w