[D]I think that anyone who reads this article will be, like myself, satisfied that the destruction of the pigeons was wrought to gratify the avarice and love of gain of a few men who slaughtered them until they were virtually exterminated.—W. B. M.
[D]I think that anyone who reads this article will be, like myself, satisfied that the destruction of the pigeons was wrought to gratify the avarice and love of gain of a few men who slaughtered them until they were virtually exterminated.—W. B. M.
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WHEN a boy and living in northern Ohio, I often had to go with a gun and drive the pigeons from the newly sown fields of wheat. At that time wheat was sown broadcast, and pigeons would come by the thousands and pick up the wheat before it could be covered with the drag. My father would say, "Get the gun and shoot at every pigeon you see," and often I would see them coming from the woods and alighting on the newly sowed field. They would alight until the ground was fairly blue with these beautiful birds.
I would secrete myself in a fence corner, and as these birds would alight on the ground they would form themselves in a long row, canvassing the field for grain, and as the rear birds raised up and flew over those in front, they reminded one of the little breakers on the ocean beach, and as they came along in this form, they resembled a windrow of hay rolling across the field.
I would wait until the end of this wave was opposite my hiding place and then arise and fire into this windrow of living, animated beauty, and I have picked up as many as twenty-seven dead birds killed at a single shot with an old flintlock smooth bore. Later in the fall these birds would come in countless millions to feed on the wild mast of beech nuts and acorns, and every evening they would pass over our home, going west of our place to what was known as Lodi Swamp.
Many and many a time have I seen clouds of birds that extended as far as the eye could reach, and the sound of their wings was like the roar of a tempest. And for those who are not acquainted with the habits and flight of these birds, I wish to say that once in the month of November, while these pigeons were going from their feeding grounds to this roost in the Lodi Swamp, they were met with a storm of sleet and snow. The wind blew so hard that they could not breast it and were compelled to alight in a sugar orchard near our place. This orchard consisted of twenty acres, where the timber had all been cut out, except the maples, and when they commenced alighting, the trees already partially loaded with snow and ice, and the vast flock of pigeons being attracted by those alighting, all sought the same resting place.
Such vast numbers alighted that in a short time the branches of the trees were broken and as fast as one tree gave way those birds would alight on the alreadyloaded tree adjoining, and, that, too, was stripped of its long and limber branches. Suffice it to say that in a half hour's time this beautiful sugar orchard was entirely ruined by the loads of birds which had attempted to rest from the storm.
About this time I enjoyed my first pigeon hunt in a roost. Being a boy about sixteen years of age, having a brother about thirteen, and as we had seen the pigeons going by to their roost for hours and knowing that many people went there every night to shoot pigeons on the roost, my brother and I were seized with a desire to go and enjoy this exciting sport. Then arose the difficulty of a gun suitable for the occasion. As we had nothing but a small-bore rifle and not owning a shotgun, we appealed to father as to what we should do for a gun. We had previously gained his consent to our going. He suggested that we take the old horse pistol; one of the Revolutionary time, which had been kept in the family as a reminder of troublesome years.
Let the young man of to-day, who hunts with the improved breechloader, think of two boys starting pigeon hunting, their only outfit consisting of a horse pistol, barrel twelve inches long, caliber 12-gauge, flintlock, one pound of No. 4 shot, a quarter of a pound of powder, a pocket full of old newspaper for wadding, a two-bushel bag to carry game in, and a tin lantern. Thus equipped, we started for the pigeon roost a little after dark. Although three miles from the roost whenwe started from home, we could hear the sullen roar of that myriad of birds, and the sound increased in volume as we approached the roost, till it became as the roar of the breakers upon the beach.
As we approached the swamp where the birds roosted, a few scattered birds were frightened from the roost along the edge of the swamp. These scattering birds we could not shoot, but kept advancing further into the swamp. As we approached this vast body of birds, which bent the alders flat to the ground, we could see every now and then ahead of us a small pyramid which looked like a haystack in the darkness, and as we approached what appeared to be this haystack, the frightened birds would fly from the bended alders, and we would find ourselves standing in the midst of a diminutive forest of small trees of alders and willows.
We now found these apparent haystacks were only small elms or willows completely loaded down with live birds. My brother suggested that I shoot at the next "haystack." So we advanced along very carefully among the now upright alders till we came to where it was a perfect roar of voices and wings, and just ahead of us we saw one of those mysterious objects which so resembled a haystack.
My brother suggested that I aim at the center of it and let the old horse pistol go. I instantly obeyed his suggestion, pointing as best I could in the dim light at the center of that form, and pulled. There was a flashand a roar, and the very atmosphere seemed to be alive with flying, chattering birds. The old tin lantern was lighted. The horse pistol was hunted for, as it had recoiled with such force I had lost hold of it. The gun being found, we then approached as nearly as we could the place where I had shot at the stack. From this discharge we picked up eighteen pigeons and saw some hobbling away into thick brush, from which we could not recover them. After an hour of this kind of hunting our bag was full of pigeons, and our tallow candle in the lantern nearly consumed. We retraced our steps out of the swamp, and about 11 o'clock at night arrived home well satisfied with the night's hunt in the pigeon roost. We had had acres of enjoyment and had brought home bushels of pigeons.
This is only to give an idea of what pigeons were in northern Ohio in the days of my boyhood. This was in the years of 1844 to 1846. In 1854, having grown to man's estate, I moved to Michigan and settled in Cass County, where I built a log house and began clearing up a farm. After having cleared three or four fields around my house, one morning one of my girls came running in from out of doors and said: "Pa, come out and see the pigeons."
I went to the door and saw scooting across my fields, as it seemed skimming the surface of the earth, flock after flock of the birds, one coming close upon the heels of another. I hastened into the house and grasped mydouble barreled shotgun, powder flask and shot pouch; my little girl, then a miss of twelve summers, following me. I took a stand on a slight rise in the middle of a five-acre field and commenced shooting, you might say, at wads of pigeons, so closely huddled were they as they went by. Letting the birds get opposite me and firing across the flock, I was enabled to kill from three to fifteen pigeons at a shot. And my girl was wildly excited, picking up the dead birds and catching the winged ones and bringing them to me.
You never saw two mortals more busy than we were for a half hour. At this time my wife called for breakfast, as we were near the house, and I found my stock of ammunition nearly exhausted. We went into the house for our breakfast and when we came out the birds were flying as thickly as ever. She says, let us count the pigeons and see how many we have. We found we had killed and picked up in this short time twenty-three dozen. My wife said I had better take them to Three Rivers, which was our nearest town, and sell them. And as my ammunition was about exhausted, I hitched up my team, took twenty dozen of the birds and drove ten miles to the station, sold my birds for sixty-five cents a dozen and returned home well satisfied with my day's work, and having on hand a good supply of ammunition for the next morning's flight.
Now I wish to pass along, the lapse of time being about sixteen years. During this time I had removedfrom Cass County to Van Buren County, where I had located in the beautiful village of Hartford. In the year 1869 or 1870, the pigeoners, a class of men who lived in Hartford, made a business of netting pigeons, and they are living here yet, and not one of them feels any pride in the part he took in the destruction of these beautiful birds. In March, 1869, word was received that a large flight of pigeons were coming north through the State of Indiana. These men, who had followed the pigeons for years, said, "As we have snow on the ground they will be sure to nest near here, and as we have had a big crop of beech nuts and acorns last fall they will be sure to stop to get the benefit of this mast." A queer thing about the pigeon was that he always built his nest on the borders of the snow, that is, where the ground underneath was covered with snow.
Sure enough, as predicted, in two days after receiving notice of the flight of the birds from Indiana, myriads of pigeons were passing north along the east shore of Lake Michigan, and soon scattering flocks were seen going south towards the bare ground. In a few days word was received that pigeons had gone to nesting in what was then called Deerfield Township, a vast body of hardwood and hemlock timber. Then it was that the pigeon killers, with their nets, stool birds and flyers commenced making preparations for the slaughter of the beautiful birds when they began layingtheir eggs. This takes place only three or four days after they commence nesting, as a pigeon's nest is the simplest nest ever built by a bird seen in a tree. It consists of a few little twigs laid crosswise, without moss or lining of any kind, and the lay of eggs is but one. As soon as one egg is laid, they commence sitting, and the male pigeon is quite a gentleman in his way, taking his turn and sitting one-half of the time.
In about twelve or fourteen days—some claim twenty—the young pigeon is hatched. As soon as hatched the male and female birds commence feeding on what is known as marsh feed, that is, on low, springy ground. And from this feed is supplied to both the male and female bird what is known as pigeon's milk, forming inside of the crop a sort of curd, on which the young pigeon is fed by both father and mother, who supply this food. The young bird is gorged with this food, and in a few days becomes as heavy as the parent bird. Another singular thing about the wild pigeon is that as the snow melts and the ground is left bare where the nesting is, the old birds never eat the nuts in the nesting, but leave them for the benefit of the young one, and so when he comes off the nest he always finds an abundance of food at his very door, as it were. As soon as the young birds are able to leave the nest and begin feeding on the ground in the nesting, the old birds immediately forsake them, move again on to the borders of the snow and start anothernesting. In five or ten days the young birds will follow in the direction of the old birds.
When the young birds first come off the nest and commence feeding on the ground, they are fat as balls of butter, but in ten days from this time, when they start on their northern flight to follow their mother bird, they are poor as snakes, and almost unfit to eat, while, when they first leave the nest they are the most palatable morsel man ever tasted. However, in about forty days from the time they began nesting to the time they took their northern flight, there were shipped from Hartford and vicinity, three carloads a day of these beautiful meteors of the sky. Each car containing 150 barrels with 35 dozen in a barrel, making the daily shipment 24,750 dozen.
Young men who are now hunting for something to shoot and wondering what has become of our game, must hear with anger and regret such reports as this from western Michigan in the days gone by: "In three years' time there were caught and shipped to New York and other eastern cities 990,000 dozen pigeons, and in the two succeeding years it was estimated by the same men who caught the pigeons at Hartford that there were one-third more shipped from Shelby than from Hartford; and from Petoskey, Emmett County, two years later, it is now claimed by C. H. Engle, a resident of this town, who was a participant in this ungodly slaughter, that there were shipped five carloads a dayfor thirty days, with an average of 8,250 dozen to the carload. Now, when one asks you what has become of the wild pigeons, refer them to C. H. Engle, Stephen Stowe, Chas. Sherburne, and Hiram Corwin, and a man by the name of Miles from Wisconsin, Mr. Miles having caught 500 dozen in a single day. And when you are asked what has become of the wild pigeons, figure up the shipping bills, and they will show what has become of this, the grandest game bird that ever cleft the air of any continent."
My young friends, I want to humbly ask your forgiveness for having taken a small part in the destruction of this, the most exciting of sport. And there is not one of us but is ashamed of the slaughter which has robbed you of enjoyment. If we had been restrained by laws of humanity, you, too, could have enjoyed this sport for years to come.
CHAPTER XIV
A Novel Theory of Extinction
By C. H. Ames and Robert Ridgway
Boston, March 8, 1906.
Mr. W. B. Mershon:
Dear Sir:—Thank you for your note of the third in reply to mine of the first, in regard to your book on the Passenger Pigeon. I note that you say:
"There is room to make additions if you think you have something that would be interesting, and would like to submit it to me for my consideration."
Thanking you for your courtesy in the matter, I beg to say that I have long had great interest in the problem of the so sudden and complete destruction of this great species, and have from the first been quite unable to believe that the ordinarily assigned agencies for the destruction of the pigeon were adequate, or anywhere near adequate, to make a destruction so sudden and complete.
Several accounts which have come to my notice have strengthened my view. I know well that the attack of man and beast upon the pigeons in their rookeries, or breeding places, was fierce, persistent and enormouslydestructive, and that at these breeding places the destroyers gathered in great numbers, but, with my vivid recollection of the tremendous flights of pigeons which I myself saw in the '60's in northern Illinois, the wide distribution of the bird, and what I know of its migratory habits (I wish I knew very much more about these habits), I cannot think that in so few years the practical destruction of the species could be effected by the means referred to.
Years ago—I cannot tell how many, but I am confident it must have been at about the time of the disappearance of the great pigeon flights—I read an account, either in or quoted from a New Orleans newspaper, giving the stories of several ship captains and sailors who had arrived in New Orleans from the Gulf of Mexico. They stated that they had, in crossing the Gulf, sailed over leagues and leagues of water covered, and covered thickly, with dead pigeons. The supposition was that an enormous flight of the pigeons crossing the waters of the Gulf had been overwhelmed by a cyclone, or some such atmospheric disturbance, and that the birds had been whirled into the surf and drowned.
I have been told by competent ornithologists connected with the Boston Society of Natural History that Pigeon Cove, a well-known and much frequented extremity of Cape Ann, near Gloucester, Mass., received its name from the fact that a large flight of pigeons was similarly overwhelmed in flying along the Atlantic nearthat place, and that their bodies covered the shore in "windrows."
Not more than two years ago, if so long, I read a lengthy and signed account in a Montreal paper of a similar catastrophe to a great flight of pigeons in attempting to cross Lake Michigan, and similar statement was made that for miles the beach above Milwaukee was heaped and piled with "windrows" of dead pigeons.
Within two or three years several accounts have reached us, bearing every mark of believability, that considerable flights of geese, swans and ducks have been drowned in the surf off the New Jersey and Maryland shores. These flights of birds have been overwhelmed in a sudden storm or gale of wind, which beat them down into the surf where they were drowned, their bodies drifting about, and some of them being thrown up on the shore.
These accounts have come from fishermen, sportsmen and others, and I see no reason whatever to doubt that a flight of birds of any species known could easily be destroyed if caught off shore in some of the wind storms of which we have so many instances. I have frequently inForest and Streampropounded my theory and asked for information about it before it became too late. The whole theory stands or falls, as it seems to me, with the ascertainment of the southern limit of the migration of the great pigeon flight. If the birds did not cross the Gulf of Mexico there is farless likelihood of my theory being the correct one, though my inquiries inForest and Streamelicited one very circumstantial account of an enormous destruction of pigeons on the Gulf Coast, the birds being blown into the Gulf and destroyed by a fierce "norther" which beat down the coast for two or three days. Persons familiar with this phenomena of the Texas "norther" need no help to their imaginations in seeing how a pigeon flight, being caught on the shores of the Gulf by such a wind could be practically destroyed.
I do not know that you will think my theory worth any consideration, but I have finally interested a number of ornithologists who share my view that the final and sudden wiping out of the great bulk of the pigeon flight must have been by some cataclysmic agency. It seems to me that the question is one of great interest from the point of view of the naturalist and biologist, and well worth serious investigation by all who care for these things. I shall be pleased to know if what I have said seems to you of interest and to have any weight.
Wishing you all success in your admirable undertaking, and anticipating with great pleasure the results of your studies in your proposed book, I am,
Yours very truly,
C. H. Ames.
Memorandum prepared by Mr. Robert Ridgway, Curator of the Division of Birds, U. S. National Museum, to accompany letter to Mr. W. B. Mershon, Saginaw, Mich.
If Mr. Mershon will communicate on the subject of Passenger Pigeons with Mr. William Brewster,[E]145 Brattle Street, Cambridge, Mass., he may get some data which will (or ought to) dismiss from consideration the idea that the passenger pigeon could have been exterminated in the manner suggested by Mr. Ames. During a visit to northern Michigan, Mr. Brewster talked with a great many pigeon netters. I have forgotten the figures, and may be very inexact in my recollection of them, but my recollection is that at one "roost" there were one hundred netters who averaged one thousand (it may have been ten thousand) pigeons per day. When it is considered that this was the rate of destruction at one locality in one State only, that the same was going on in other States, and that tens of thousands were being killed by hunters and others, and this year after year, I cannot see anything surprising in the eventual extermination of the species, no matter how numerously represented originally.
[E]See Chapter VII, "Netting the Pigeon" by Wm. Brewster.
[E]See Chapter VII, "Netting the Pigeon" by Wm. Brewster.
Nothing in the history of the Passenger Pigeon is more certainly known than the fact that its range to the southwarddid not extend beyond the United States.There is a single Cuban record, but the occurrence was purely accidental. The migrations of the Passenger Pigeon were wholly different in their character from those of true emigrants, that is to say, they were influenced or controlled purely by the matter of food supply, as in the case of the robin and some other birds, and the flights were as often from west to east andvice versaas from south to north or north to south; in short, the flocks moved about in various directions in their search for food or nesting places. For myself, I do not believe in the story of drowning in the Gulf of Mexico for two reasons. In the first place the birds are extremely unlikely to have been there, a hurricane from thenorthwardbeing absolutely necessary to explain their presence in that quarter, and, in the second place, no such explanation is needed in view of what is known to be the facts concerning their wholesale destruction by human agency alone.
The range of the Passenger Pigeon was limited to the mixed hardwood forest region of the eastern United States and Canada, and any that occurred beyond were stragglers, pure and simple. Consequently it was not found, except as stragglers, in the long-leaf pine belt of the Gulf Coast, but only on the uplands from northern or middle Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, northward.
CHAPTER XV
News from John Burroughs
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WHEN the following report from so high an authority as John Burroughs appeared inForest and Streamit seemed too important to be overlooked. I therefore ventured to open a correspondence with this famous naturalist, even suggesting that his informants might have mistaken some other species of migratory bird for a flight of wild pigeons. I had once made a similar mistake in Texas when the northern migration of the curlews was in full flight. Countless flocks of them were streaming past at a considerable distance from me, and I could have sworn they were wild pigeons until I was lucky enough to see them at much closer range. Even now the newspapers east and west contain an annual crop of wild pigeon reports, most of which are to be found fake reports upon careful investigation. It has happened often that hunters and woodsmen mistake the wild dove for the pigeon, and refuse to believe otherwise. The correspondence explains itself, however, and is a valuable contribution to the subject in hand.
W. B. M.
A FLOCK OF WILD PIGEONS[F]
[F]FromForest and Stream, May 19, 1906.
West Park, N. Y., May 11th.
EditorForest and Stream:
I have received evidence which is to me entirely convincing that a large flock of Passenger Pigeons was seen to pass over the village of Prattsville, Greene County, this State, late one afternoon about the middle of April. The fact was first reported in the local paper, the PrattsvilleNews. An old boyhood schoolmate of mine, Charles W. Benton, was, with others, reported to have seen them. I have corresponded with Mr. Benton and have no doubt the pigeons were seen as stated. Mr. Benton saw pigeons, clouds of them, in his boyhood, and could not well be mistaken. He says it was about 5 o'clock, and that the flock stretched out across the valley about one-half mile and must have contained many hundreds. It came from the southeast, and went northwest. Mr. Benton says that a large flock was reported last year as having passed over the village of Catskill, and that a wild pigeon was shot near Prattsville last fall. A friend of mine saw two pigeons in the woods at West Point a year or so ago.
I have no doubt, therefore, that the wild pigeon is still with us, and that if protected we may yet see them in something like their numbers of thirty years ago.
John Burroughs.
West Park, N. Y., May 27, 1906.
To W. B. Mershon:
Dear Sir:—I can give you no more definite information about that flock of pigeons than I reported toForest and Stream. I have no doubt about the fact. If you will write to C. W. Benton, Prattsville, N. Y., he can put you in communication with several people who saw the flock.
I am just about to write toForest and Streamof another very large flock of pigeons that was seen to pass over the city of Kingston, N. Y., on the morning of the 15th. I have written to Judge A. T. Clearwater of that city, who replies that he has talked with many persons who saw the pigeons and who had seen the pigeons years ago. The flock is described as a mile long. I am going up to Kingston soon to question the persons who saw the flock. If I learn anything to discredit the story I will let you know. We never have a flight of any birds here that could be mistaken for pigeons by any one who had ever seen the latter. If these flocks were pigeons, where have they been hiding all these years?
Very sincerely yours,
John Burroughs.
Prattsville, N. Y., June 9, 1906.
W. B. Mershon, Saginaw, Mich.:
Dear Sir:—Yours of the 6th inst. is before me and I hasten to reply. Now, in the first place, you speakof John Burroughs. Mr. Burroughs and I went to school together when we were boys, and, as you say, he is a good authority on natural history, and I have had some communication with him on the pigeon question. I live in the heart of the Catskill Mountains, which was once a great resort for wild pigeons, and I have seen a vast number of them, dating back as far as 1848, when this country was literally covered with them, and for some years after. Now in regard to the wild pigeons I saw this spring. I was going to my home in the village of Prattsville, in company with a man by the name of M. E. Kreiger, one Sunday afternoon, and when near my house we stopped to talk a few minutes, when, on looking up, we saw the flock of pigeons. They were coming from the southeast and went to the northwest. The flock was about one-half mile long and flew in the same manner as pigeons of old. There were thousands of them. Now in regard to ducks, teal and plover, we never see any of them here in the mountains, though once in a while a few ducks, but only in small flocks of seven or eight in a bunch; and there are no birds that gather in flocks here but crows in the fall, but never at any other time. Wild geese fly over here in the fall.
TheDaily Leader, a daily paper published in Kingston, Ulster County, N. Y., contained an item a few weeks since stating that a flock of wild pigeons passed over the city a short time ago. The flock was about one mile long and contained many thousands. And inthe spring of 1905, theCatskill Recorder, a newspaper published in this county, reported seeing a flock similar to the one seen at Kingston.
Wishing you success on your fishing trip, I am,
Yours truly,
C. W. Benton.
THE SULLIVAN COUNTY PIGEONS
West Park, N. Y., June 30th.
EditorForest and Stream:
Since I wrote you a few weeks ago, I have been looking up the men who were reported to have seen wild pigeons recently. I have seen six men who are positive they have seen flocks of wild pigeons—some of them two years ago, and some of them this past spring. As these men were all past middle age and had been familiar with the pigeon thirty and forty years ago and were, moreover, men reported truthful and sober by their neighbors, and who impressed me as being entirely reliable, I feel bound to credit their several statements. At De Bruce, Sullivan County, Mr. Cooper, the postmaster and village blacksmith, said he had seen a large flock of pigeons in the fall two years ago. They were about a buckwheat field. He pointed out the hill about which they were flying. Mr. Cooper had shot and trapped a great many pigeons years ago, and was sure he could not mistake any other bird for a pigeon. A farmer, whose name I do not now remember andwho heard Mr. Cooper's statement, said he saw a large flock last fall about a buckwheat field, in the same town. This man was reported to me as perfectly reliable, and he gave me that impression.
At Port Ewen, I met a Hudson River shad fisherman, Mr. Van Vliet, who said he had seen early one morning in April or May, two years ago, a flock of wild pigeons over the Hudson. He estimated the flock as containing seventy or eighty birds. Mr. Van Vliet is a man nearly seventy years old, and one cannot look into his face and have him speak and doubt for a moment the truth of what he is saying. When I asked him if he knew the wild pigeon, he smiled good-humoredly and said he knew them as well as he knew anything; he had lived in the time of pigeons, and had killed hundreds of them.
Another man, one of the leading grocerymen of Port Ewen, said he had seen a very large flock of pigeons between 4 and 5 o'clock on May 15 last, flying over as he was on his way to open his store. His hired man, who was with him, also saw them. Mr. Van Leuven had also seen pigeons in his youth and described to me accurately their manner of flight and the form of the flock against the sky. A neighbor of his told me he had seen a flock of fifteen or twenty pigeons on a foggy morning only a few days before. The rush of their wings overhead first attracted his attention to them. But he had never seen wild pigeons, and might havebeen deceived, though he was sure they were pigeons by their speed and general look.
None of these men could have had any motive in trying to deceive me, and I feel bound to credit their stories. Their statements, taken in connection with the statement of my old schoolfellow at Prattsville, N. Y., of whom I wrote you, makes me believe that there is a large flock of wild pigeons that still at times frequents this part of the State, and perhaps breeds somewhere in the wilds of Sullivan or Ulster County. But they ought to be heard from elsewhere—from the south or southwest in winter.
John Burroughs.
P. S.—Just as I finished the above, I came upon the following in the PoughkeepsieSunday Courier:
"We noticed recently an item asking whether wild pigeons are returning. Sullivan County people seem to be taking the lead in answering the question, but a Dutchess County farmer named David Rosell, living near Fishkill Plains, who was familiar with the aforesaid birds in old days, reports having seen a flock of about thirty feeding on his buckwheat patch one morning last week, which gives evidence that the birds are not extinct as supposed, but a flock may merely be taking a tour around the world like Magellan of old. Mr. Rosell stated that he had not seen any before in about forty years. At first sight, he could hardly believe his eyes, but he was not long in becoming convinced of their identity."
CHAPTER XVI
The Pigeon in Manitoba[G]
By George E. Atkinson
[G]This paper was read at a meeting of the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society at Winnepeg in 1905, by the author, a naturalist, residing at Portage la Prairie.
[G]This paper was read at a meeting of the Manitoba Historical and Scientific Society at Winnepeg in 1905, by the author, a naturalist, residing at Portage la Prairie.
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WHILE the biological history of any country records the decrease and disappearance of many forms of life due to just or unjust circumstances, it remains for the historical records of North America to reveal a career of human selfishness which may be considered the paragon. Within four centuries of North American civilization (or modified barbarism) we can be credited with the wiping into the past of at least three species of animal life originally so phenomenally abundant and so strikingly characteristic in themselves as to evoke the wonder and amazement of the entire world. And, sad to relate, so effectual has been the extermination, that it is doubtful if our descendants a few generations hence will be able to learn anything whatever about them save through the medium of books. While herein again we shall be just subjects of their censure for having manifestly failedto preserve in history's archives any material amount of specific information.
The early settlers landing upon the Atlantic coast between Newfoundland and the Carolinas found them in possession of armies of great auks, and the few scraps of authenticated history which we now possess disclose a most iniquitous course of wanton slaughter and destruction which ended in the complete extinction of the bird over sixty years ago. Yet in the face of this destruction there remain but four mounted specimens and two eggs in the collections of North America to-day, while but seventy skins remain in the collections of the entire world.
If possible, more ruthless and inhuman was the carnage waged against the noble buffalo, the countless thousands of which roaming over virgin prairies excited the wonder and amazement of the entire sporting and scientific world, and which, to-day, are represented only in the zoölogical parks, where all individuality will eventually be lost in domestication.
Coincident almost with the passing of the buffalo we have to record the decline and fall of the Passenger Pigeon, a bird which aroused the excitement and wonder of the entire world during the first half of the last century because of its phenomenal numbers; a bird also which stood out unique in character and individuality among the 300 described pigeons of the world and which won the admiration of every ornithologist whowas fortunate enough to have experience with it living or dead. Yet it was not exempt from the oppression of its human foe, who has been instrumental, through interference with the breeding and feeding grounds and through a continued persecution and ruthless slaughter for the market, in reducing the species almost beyond the hope of salvation.
The Passenger Pigeon, the species under observation, was first described under the genusColumba, or type pigeons, but subsequently Swainson separated it from these and placed it under the genusEctopistesbecause of the greater length of wing and tail.
Generically namedEctopistes, meaning moving about or wandering, and specifically namedMigratoria, meaning migratory, we have a technical name implying not only a species of migrating annually to and from their breeding ground, but one given to moving about from season to season, selecting the most congenial environment for both breeding and feeding.
. . . With all the knowledge we have possessed of the inestimable multitudes which existed during the early part of the last century, and with their decline, begun and noted generally in the later sixties and early seventies, we still find that no steps whatever were taken to prevent their possible depletion, and few records of any value are made of the continuance or speed of this decrease; and not until the last decade of the century do we awake to the fact that the pigeons are gone beyondthe possibility of a return in any numbers. When a few years later reports are made that pigeons still exist and are again increasing, scientific investigation shows that the mourning dove has been mistaken for the pigeon or that the band-tailed pigeon of California is taken for the old Passenger Pigeon, and so we have continued since the early nineties investigating rumors of their appearance from all over America, north and south, and the West India Islands, but all reports point us to the past for the pigeon and some other species under suspicion. . . . I doubt very much if the historian desirous of compiling any historical work would find himself confronted with such a decided blank in historical records during an important period as that confronted in the compilation of a historical record of the Passenger Pigeon within any district which it formerly frequented during the period from about 1870, when the decline was first noticed, to 1890, when the birds had practically passed away. . . .
In this matter, Mr. J. H. Fleming of Toronto, in writing me, says: "The pigeons seem to have gone off like dynamite. Nobody expected it and nobody prepared a series of skins"; and to this I can add that no one seems to have made any series of records of the birds from year to year. Since their disappearance, however, things have changed: everybody is alert for pigeons, and everybody has a theory; but beyond offering subject of social conversation, or awakening a recitalof old pigeon experiences from the old timers, these rumors and theories seem to return to the winds from whence they came.
The latest theory advanced to me by a correspondent is the possibility of some disturbance of the elements in the shape of a cyclone, or a storm striking a migrating host in crossing the Gulf of Mexico and destroying them almost completely. This is a plausible theory, but I am unable to conceive how such immense hosts of pigeons as are recorded up to 1865 could possibly have met with sudden disaster in this manner, even in the center of the Gulf, without leaving some wreckage to tell the story, and such is not recorded. While again I do not think that the entire host would cross the Gulf, but that a large portion of the migrating birds would take an overland route through Mexico and Central America to the southern boundary of their flight. Personally I am inclined to cherish my original contentions that the continued disturbance of the breeding and feeding grounds, both by the slaughter of the birds for market and by the dissipating of the original immense colonies by the clearing of the hardwood and pine forests of the United States and eastern Canada, compelling these sections of the main column to travel farther in search of congenial environment, curtailing the breeding season, and, I have no doubt, frequently preventing many from breeding for several seasons.
While the persistent persecution and destruction forthe market was in no way proportionately lessened in the vicinity of these smaller colonies as long as a sufficient number of the birds remained to make the traffic profitable, it can at once be seen that this continued drain upon these smaller colonies, when other conditions were becoming more difficult for the birds to contend with, would be instrumental in depleting the entire former main column to a point when netting and shooting were no longer profitable; and, the remnant of these colonies having to run a gantlet of persecution over their entire course of migration to and from winter quarters, there could be but one result to such proceeding, and that one we now face; extermination.
Of these records made during the pigeons' day, as we might call it, the earliest we have are those made by a Mr. T. Hutchins, who was a Hudson's Bay Company trader, operating for some twenty-five years in the district adjacent to Hudson's Bay, during which time he made copious notes of the birds frequenting that district, which were afterwards published by Pennant in his "Arctic Zoölogy" in 1875. He says in part:
"The first pigeon I shall take note of is one I received at Severn in 1771; and, having sent it home to Mr. Pennant, he informed me that it was themigratoriaspecies. They are very numerous inland and visit our settlement in the summer. They are plentiful about Moose Factory and inland, where they breed, choosingan arboreous situation. The gentlemen number them among the many delicacies the Hudson's Bay affords our tables. It is a hardy bird, continuing with us until December. In summer their food is berries, but after these are covered with snow, they feed upon the juniper buds. They lay two eggs and are gregarious. About 1756 these birds migrated as far north as York Factory, but remained only two days."
In a report issued in 1795, Samuel Hearne also reports the birds being abundant inland from the southern portion of Hudson's Bay, but states that, though good eating, they were seldom fat.
The first provincial record is that made by Sir John Richardson in 1827, in which he says: "A few hordes of Indians who frequent the low floods districts at the south end of Lake Winnipeg subsist principally on the pigeons during the period when the sturgeon fishing is unproductive and the wild rice is still unripened, but farther north the birds are too few in numbers to furnish material diet."
I presume that he means farther up the Lake Winnipeg shores, since Hutchins and Hearne both reported them common nearer Hudson's Bay.
The early records of the birds in eastern Canada in later years corroborate the earlier statements of Wilson and Audubon in almost every particular; and one acquainted with the timbered conditions of the country to the immediate west of the Red River Valley andnorth of the American boundary line can readily appreciate the utter inadequacy of an acceptable food supply for these countless millions of pigeons; and we can also readily understand how very soon the breaking up of the original hardwood forests of eastern Canada would tend to decrease the visible food supply and cause these hungry millions to seek new pastures.
The breaking of these feeding grounds would first be instrumental in scattering or breaking up the largest flocks, and even the very long distances the bird was able to fly from breeding to feeding ground would be exceeded, necessitating next the nesting in smaller colonies, where careless nesting habits with continued changing conditions would tend to continue to decline their numbers, while the tenacity with which even the smaller roosts were clung to by man, like leeches to a frog, and the hapless victim shot, netted and stolen from the nest before maturity, was but another effectual and not the least responsible agent in the relegation of the pigeon to that past from which none return.
When I decided to attempt the preparation of a review history of the pigeon in Manitoba, I felt that, having had practically no experience with the bird myself, I should have to depend upon the reports of representative pioneers of the country for my facts as to the numbers of the birds formerly found here, and the period of their decline and disappearance. I accordingly drafted a series of questions which I submitted tothese gentlemen, and I have to tender them all my sincere thanks, as well as that of the scientific world, for the ready responses and the conciseness of the information received.
One of the earliest residents of Portage la Prairie, Mr. George A. Garrioch, informs me:
"I was born in Manitoba and came to Portage la Prairie about 1853. I was then only about six years old, and as far back as I can remember pigeons were very numerous.
"They passed over every spring, usually during the mornings, in very large flocks, following each other in rapid succession.
"I do not think they bred in any numbers in the province, as I only remember seeing one nest; this contained two eggs.
"The birds, to my recollection, were most numerous in the fifties, and the decline was noticed in the later sixties and continued until the early eighties, when they disappeared. I have observed none since until last year, when I am positive I saw a single male bird south of the town of Portage la Prairie."
Mr. Angus Sutherland of Winnipeg, in reply to my interrogation, states:
"I was born in the present city of Winnipeg and have lived here over fifty years. The wild pigeons were very numerous in my boyhood. They frequented the mixed woods about the city, and while undoubtedly many birdsbred here, I remember no extensive breeding colonies in the province, and believe the great majority passed farther north to breed. About 1870 the decrease in their numbers was most pronouncedly manifest, this decline continuing until the early eighties, when they had apparently all disappeared, and I have seen only occasional birds since, and none of late years."
Mr. W. J. McLean, formerly of the Hudson's Bay Company and at present a resident of Winnipeg, sends me some valuable information, which supports my contention regarding the influence of food supply. He writes:
"I came to the Red River Settlement in 1860 and found the pigeons very plentiful on my arrival. The birds came in many thousands, and great numbers of them bred in the northeastern portion of the province through the district north of the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, where the cranberry and blueberry are abundant. These fruits constitute their chief food supply, as they remain on the bushes and retain much of their food properties until well on into the summer following their growth. They also feed largely on acorns wherever they abound. The decline began about the early seventies, and 1877 was the first year in which I encountered large flocks of them passing northwesterly from White Sand River near Fort Pelly. This was on a dull, drizzling day about the middle of May, and I presume they were then heading towards the BarrenGrounds district, where the blueberry and the cranberry are very abundant."
Mr. E. H. G. G. Hay, formerly police magistrate of Portage la Prairie, now of St. Andrews, reports:
"I came to the country in June, 1861, and found that the pigeons were abundant previous to my arrival. To give you an idea of their numbers, a Mr. Thompson of St. Andrews some mornings caught with a net about ten feet square as many as eighty dozen, and in the spring of 1864 I fired into a flock as they rose from the ground and picked up seventeen birds.
"The birds were mostly migratory in what is now known as Manitoba, and most of them went farther north after the seeding season. I never heard of any extensive rookeries such as those observed in the east and south. The few that bred here frequented mixed poplar and spruce. They seemed most numerous in the sixties and began to show signs of decreasing about 1869 or 1870, and by 1875 they had all disappeared and I have only seen an occasional bird since."
Mr. William Clark of the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg, informs me:
"The first place I remember having seen pigeons in Manitoba was at White Horse Plains (St. François Xavier) in 1865, where they were very numerous, breeding in the oak trees in that district. Two years after this I went to Oak Point on Lake Manitoba, but do not remember the birds there then nor since."
Mr. Charles A. Boultbee of Macgregor, Man., replies as follows:
"I have resided in Manitoba since 1872, and have taken pigeons as far north as Fort Pelly in the fall of 1874, but know nothing of them previously. In our district they usually made their appearance in the fall and fed upon the grain. They continued fairly numerous until about 1882, at which time we had to drive them from the grain stocks, but they then disappeared and only stragglers have been noted since."
There is no doubt that many other reports could have been secured, but, as all seem to tend toward the one conclusion, I shall save time and space by summarizing the information at hand.
Some months ago I made a statement in an article, written for local interest, to the effect that Manitoba had never been the home of the wild pigeon. By this I meant that, because of unfavorable breeding and feeding conditions within the province, only the smallest percentage of the enormous flocks recorded for the south and east could possibly exist here. The records here collected support me in this contention so far as that portion of the province west of the Red River is concerned, but the record of Sir John Richardson tends to show that favorable conditions must have existed immediately south of Lake Winnipeg, through what he calls a low-lying district, and where we can assume that the cranberry and blueberry were abundant, as theywere through the district subsequently reported by Mr. McLean to the east and northeast of this district. There is no doubt that the difference in the character of the country east of the Red River from that of the west would present more favorable conditions for the birds, but not in one case has it been shown that the birds nested in colonies approaching the size of the famous eastern and southern roosts. Reports seem rather to show that those which bred within the province were more generally scattered over the country, at the same time being numerous enough to permit the shooter and the netter to make a profitable business of killing the birds.
All evidence seems to show that large numbers passed through the province to and from a northern breeding ground, possibly that recorded by Hutchins near Hudson's Bay and to the westward, and that they were excessively numerous up to about 1870, when they began to decrease. As to the latest authenticated records, I quote from notes in my pamphlet on "Rare Bird Records:"
"The beautiful specimen of the Passenger Pigeon that I have been able to secure for illustration is loaned me by Mr. Dan Smith of Winnipeg, who shot it in St. Boniface, southeast of the cathedral, in the fall of 1893; and, so far as I have been able to discover, it was the last bird found in the vicinity of Winnipeg, while the only specimen in the flesh which I was ever privileged to handle in Manitoba was killed at Winnipegosis on April 10, 1896, and sent me to be mounted."