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THE PASSENGER PIGEON
[Illustration: PASSENGER PIGEON (_Columba Migratoria_)
Upper bird, male; lower, female]
THE PASSENGER PIGEON
by
W. B. MERSHON
[Illustration: Publisher's Logo]
New York The Outing Publishing Company 1907
Copyright, 1907, by W B Mershon
The Outing Press Deposit, N. Y.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction ix
I My Boyhood Among the Pigeons 1
II The Passenger Pigeon 9
_From "American Ornithology," by Alexander Wilson_
III The Passenger Pigeon 25
_From "Ornithological Biography," by John James Audubon_
IV As James Fenimore Cooper Saw It 41
V The Wild Pigeon of North America 48
_By Chief Pokagon, in "The Chautauquan"_
VI The Passenger Pigeon 60
_From "Life Histories of North American Birds,"
by Charles Bendire_
VII Netting the Pigeons 74
_By William Brewster, in "The Auk"_
VIII Efforts to Check the Slaughter 77
_By Prof. H. B. Roney_
IX The Pigeon Butcher's Defense 93
_By E. T. Martin, in "American Field"_
X Notes of a Vanished Industry 105
XI Recollections of "Old Timers" 119
XII The Last of the Pigeons 141
XIII What Became of the Wild Pigeon? 163
_By Sullivan Cook, in "Forest and Stream"_
XIV A Novel Theory of Extinction 173
_By C. H. Ames and Robert Ridgway_
XV News from John Burroughs 179
XVI The Pigeon in Manitoba 186
_By George E. Atkinson_
XVII The Passenger Pigeon in Confinement 200
_By Ruthven Deane, in "The Auk"_
XVIII Nesting Habits of the Passenger Pigeon 209
_By Dr. Morris Gibbs, in "The Oölogist"_
XIX Miscellaneous Notes 217
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Passenger Pigeon _Frontispiece_
_By Louis Agassiz Fuertes_
FACING PAGE
Audubon Plate (_color_) 24
Passenger Pigeon and Mourning Dove 88
Fac-simile of "Among the Pigeons" 92
H. T. Phillip's Store 104
Band-tailed Pigeon (_color_) 130
Comparative Size of Pigeon and Dove 156
Young Passenger Pigeon 198
Pigeon Net 218
INTRODUCTION
For the last three years I have spent most of my leisure time in
collecting as much material as possible which might help to throw light
on the oft-repeated query, "What has become of the wild pigeons?" The
result of this labor of love is scarcely more than a compilation, and
I am under many obligations to those who have so cheerfully assisted
me. I have given them credit by name in connection with their various
contributions, but I wish that I might have been able to give them the
more finished and literary setting that would have been within the
reach of a trained writer or scientist. I am merely a business man who
is interested in the Passenger Pigeon because he loves the outdoors and
its wild things, and sincerely regrets the cruel extinction of one of
the most interesting natural phenomena of his own country. If I have
been able to make a compilation that otherwise would not have been
available for the interested reader, I need make no further apologies
for the imperfect manner of my treatment of this subject.
It is hard for us of an older generation to realize that as recently as
1880 the Passenger Pigeon was thronging in countless millions through
large areas of the Middle West, and that in our boyhood we could find
no exaggeration in the records of such earlier observers as Alexander
Wilson, the ornithologist, who said that these birds associated in
such prodigious numbers as almost to surpass belief, and that their
numbers had no parallel among any other feathered tribes on the face
of the earth; or that one of their "roosts" would kill the trees over
thousands of acres as completely as if the whole forest had been
girdled with an ax.
Audubon estimated that an average flock of these pigeons contained a
billion and a quarter of birds, which consumed more than eight and a
half million bushels of mast in a day's feeding. They were slain by
millions during the middle of the last century, and from one region in
Michigan in one year three million Passenger Pigeons were killed for
market, while in that roost alone as many more perished because of the
barbarous methods of hunting them. They supplied a means of living for
thousands of hunters, who devastated their flocks with nets and guns,
and even with fire. Yet so vast were their numbers that after thirty
years of observation Audubon was able to say that "even in the face
of such dreadful havoc nothing but the diminution of our forests can
accomplish their decrease."
Many theories have been advanced to account for the disappearance
of the wild pigeons, among them that their migration may have been
overwhelmed by some cyclonic disturbance of the atmosphere which
destroyed their myriads at one blow. The big "nesting" of 1878 in
Michigan was undoubtedly the last large migration, but the pigeons
continued to nest infrequently in Michigan and the North for several
years after that, and until as late as 1886 they were trapped for
market or for trap-shooting. Therefore the pigeons did not become
extinct in a day; nor did one tremendous catastrophe wipe them from the
face of the earth. They gradually became fewer and existed for twenty
years or more after the date set as that of the final extermination.
At one time the wild pigeons covered the entire north from the Gaspé
Peninsula to the Red River of the North. Separate nestings and flights
were of regular yearly occurrence over this vast eastern and northern
expanse. Gradually civilization, molestation and warfare drove them
from the Atlantic seaboard west, until Michigan was their last grand
rendezvous, in which region their mighty hosts congregated for the
final grand nesting in 1878. As late as 1845 they were quite numerous
on the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec, but disappeared from there about that
time.
The habits of the birds were such that they could not thrive singly
nor in small bodies, but were dependent upon one another, and vast
communities were necessary to their very existence, while an enormous
quantity of food was necessary for their sustenance. The cutting off
of the forests and food supply interfered with their plan of existence
and drove them into new localities, and the ever increasing slaughter
could not help but lessen their once vast numbers.
The Passenger Pigeon laid only one egg in its nest, rarely two, and
although it bred three or four times a year it could not replenish the
numbers slaughtered by the professional netters. Undoubtedly millions
of the birds perished at various periods along the Great Lakes country,
becoming confused in foggy weather and dropping from exhaustion into
the water, while snow and sleet storms at times caused great mortality
among the young birds, and even among the old ones, which often arrived
in the North before winter had passed.
The history of the buffalo is repeated in that of the wild pigeon, the
extermination of which was inspired by the same motive: the greed of
man and the pursuit of the almighty dollar. We lock the barn door after
the horse is stolen. Our white pine forests and timber lands in general
have been wantonly destroyed with no thought for the future. The
American people are wasteful. They are just beginning to learn the need
of economy in the use of that which Nature has flung at their feet.
When one recalls the destruction of that noble animal, the buffalo,
frequently for nothing else than so-called sport, or the removal of
a robe; when one thinks of the burning of forest trees which took
centuries to grow, merely to clear a piece of land to raise crops, it
is not to be wondered at that the wild pigeon, insignificant, and not
even classed as a game bird, so soon became extinct.
The Passenger Pigeon
CHAPTER I
My Boyhood Among the Pigeons
My boyhood was made active and wholesome by a love for outdoor pastimes
that had been bred in me by generations of sport-loving ancestors. From
which side of the genealogical tree this ardor for field and forest and
open sky had come with stronger influence I cannot say. While my father
was the one to use the fowling-piece and cast the fly for the glorious
speckled trout, my mother was a willing conspirator, for it was she
who packed the lunch basket, often called us for the start in the gray
morning, and went along to "hold the horse" while we shot pigeons. And
when we were bent on a day in the woods in bracing October weather she
drove old Dolly sedately along the winding trail, while I hunted one
side of the woods and father hunted the other. On such days we were
after partridges, of course, ruffed grouse, the king of all game birds.
Often mother marked them down and told us just where they had crossed
the road, or whether the bird was hit, for the cloud of smoke from the
old black powder made seeing guesswork on our part. She loved the dogs,
too, those good old friends and workers, Sport, Bob, and Ranger.
I remember calling my mother to a window early one morning and
shouting: "See there! a flock of pigeons! Ah, ha! April fool!" This
time I did not deceive her with the threadbare trick. The joke was "on
me" for once. There was a flight of pigeons that morning, the first
one of the season, and behind the foremost flock another and another
came streaming. Away from the east side of the river at the north of
the town, from near Crow Island, they swept like a cloud. Crossing
the river to the west they reached the woods near Jerome's mill and
skirted the clearings or passed in waves over the tree tops, back of
John Winter's farm, and then wheeled to the south. Out of the tongue of
woodland, just back of the Hermansau Church, they poured, thence over
the fields, too high to be shot, and then away to the evergreens and
stately pines of Pine Hill; on, on, on across the Tittabawassee, to
some feeding ground we knew not how far away.
Now that the pigeons had come they would "fly" every morning. This we
knew from years of observation in the great migration belt of Michigan.
They would fly lower to-morrow morning, and in a day or two more sweep
low enough for the sixteen-gauge and the number eight shot to reach
them. Sometimes, even now, forty years after the last of the great
passenger pigeon flights, I fall to day-dreaming and seem to hear
myself saying in the eager, piping tones of those golden boyhood days:
"Mother, I am going for pigeons to-morrow morning! Do call me if I
oversleep. I must be awake by four o'clock. We'll have pigeon pot-pie
to-morrow. I'm going to bed early so as to be sure to be up by
daybreak. Old Sport is going along to 'fetch' dead birds."
"Hello, dad," cries a voice in my ear, "what are you up to? What are
you hustling around so for with your old shot pouch and powder-flask?
There's nothing to shoot this time of the year."
The spell is broken; my own boy fetches his daddy out of his dream,
and I am fairly caught in the act of making an old fool of myself. My
youngsters are counting the days before May first when I have promised
to take them trout-fishing, and the smallest boy found his first gun in
his stocking last Christmas. But they can know nothing at all about the
joys and excitement of pigeon shooting in the vanished days when these
birds fairly darkened the sky above our old homestead. But I try to
tell them what we used to do and my story sounds something like this:
"It is early in the spring, so early that a bunch of snow may yet
be found on the north side of the largest of the fallen trees in
the woods. Puddles that the melting snow left in the hollows of the
clearing are fringed with ice this morning, and we look around and tell
each other, 'There was a frost last night.' The mud in the road has
stiffened, and the rutted cattle tracks are also streaked and barred
with ice. Yet winter has gone and spring is here, for the buds are
swelling on the twigs of the elms and the pussy willows show their
dainty, silvery signals to tell us that the vernal equinox has come and
gone.
"If the springtime is still young, so is the day. Light is breaking
in the gray sky of dawn as we hurry along the slippery, sticky road.
We must make haste to the point of woods, by John Winter's clearing,
before full daybreak or the pigeons will be flying and we will miss the
early flocks which always keep nearest the ground.
"You may be curious to know what we look like as we trudge along in
Indian file, eagerly chatting about a kind of sport which this later
generation knows nothing about. I am a chunk of a country lad, topped
by a woolen cap with ear-tabs pulled down over my ears, a tippet around
my neck, yarn mittens on my hands, which are sure to be badly skinned
and chapped this time of year from playing 'knuckle-down-tight.'
"My 'every-day pants' are tucked into a pair of calf-skin boots with
square pieces of red leather for the tops, an old-fashioned adornment
dear to Young America of my day. My old Irish water spaniel 'Sport' is
tagging behind or charging frantically ahead; my gun is a sixteen-gauge
muzzle loader, stub and twist barrels, with dogs' heads for the hammers.
"Dangling from one shoulder is a leather shot pouch that cuts off
one ounce of number eights for a load. The sides of this pouch are
embossed, on the one a group of English woodcock, on the other a
setter rampant. Hanging at my left side by a green cord with a tassel
or two is my fluted copper powder flask, ready to measure out two and
three-fourths drams of coarse Dupont or Curtis & Harvey powder.
"My pockets are full of Ely's black-edged wads, for I am a young
nabob of sportsmen, let me tell you, and I scorn to use tow or bits
of newspaper for wadding. My vest pocket holds the caps, G. D.'s or
Ely's again, for didn't I tell you that I was a nabob. The _pièce de
résistance_ of this outfit is the game bag, the pride of my eye, for
it was a Christmas present, and this is its maiden shooting trip.
Suspended over the left shoulder so that it will hang well back of
the right hip, the strap that carries it is broad and with many holes
for the wondrous buckle which can be shifted to hang it in the most
comfortable place, wherever that is, for when it is loaded with game it
will choke me almost to death, no matter how I adjust it. This noble
bag has two pockets, one of them for luncheon, and on the outside is a
netted pocket, easy to get into and keeping the birds cool. I nearly
forgot to mention its magnificent fringe, which hangs down from both
sides and the bottom like the war-bags of an Indian chief.
"My companions are rigged out in much the same fashion. They are grown
men, however, for I don't remember any other boys who shot pigeons
with me. Holabird or khaki hunting suits are as yet unknown, and even
corduroy coats are rare. The powder horn is seen as often as the copper
flask, and one hunter has a shot belt with two compartments instead of
the English pouch. Of guns the assortment is as varied as the number of
hunters, but the old, hard-kicking army musket with its iron ramrod is
more popular than any other arm.
"We reach the edge of the clearing not a minute too soon. Now and then
a distant shot tells us that we are not the first hunters out afield
this morning. The guns are cracking everywhere along the road that
skirts the woodland, and back in, close to the 'chopping,' some better
wing-shots are posted by the openings into the woods where the birds
fly lower, but where the shooting is more difficult. It is largely
of the 'pick your bird' style, for the flight of a pigeon is very
swift, and when they are darting among the tree-tops of a small forest
opening, rare skill is required to bag one's birds.
"I prefer to take the flocks, even though they offer me more distant
targets, and soon my gun-barrels are as hot as those of the rest of the
skirmishers. Sometimes two or three birds drop from a flock at a single
discharge, and then several shots may not fetch from on high more than
one or two of the long tail-feathers spinning and twisting to the
ground. It is fascinating to watch the whirling, shining descent of one
of these feathers, and I pick up one and stick it in my cap as a matter
of habit.
"This kind of pigeon shooting takes a good gun and ammunition to kill
a big bag as we bang away at long range at the birds on their way to
the morning feeding-ground. The flight is over by half-past six o'clock
and I am home by seven o'clock ready for breakfast and then to scamper
off to school.
"The pigeons in this particular locality have followed the same routine
as long as I have known them. They only fly in the morning, always
going in the same direction, and I can't recall seeing them coming back
again, or flying later in the day. This habit holds until the young
squabs are in the nests in June, after which we are likely to find
pigeons almost anywhere, for their feeding grounds become scattered and
local.
"One thing that annoys me in these brave days of youth and sport is
the poacher, the low-down fellow who steals my birds. I am reckoned a
pretty good shot, and I have a first-rate gun, but I am only a boy, so
the pigeon thief thinks I am fair picking, and he saves his ammunition
by claiming every bird that drops anywhere near him.
"Another smart dodge of his is to fire into a flock ahead or behind
the one I am shooting at and then claim whatever birds fall as the
quarry of both our guns. If he is not too big I try to lick him, but
generally I have to submit to the rascality unless I can persuade a
grown-up friend to take my part. Sometimes these villains hang around
my shooting ground without any guns at all, and pick up as many birds
as I do. Then I hunt around for a father or an uncle to reinforce my
protests and there is a pretty row which ends in the interloper taking
to his heels to wait for a more propitious occasion.
"When we are ready to carry our birds home we pull out the four long
tail-feathers and knot them together at the tips. Then the quill ends
are stuck through the soft part of the lower mandible, and the birds
are strung together, eight or ten in a string. These strings are
bunched together by tying the quill ends of the feathers, and we have
our game festooned in compact shape for the triumphal march homeward
bound."
Alas, the pigeons and the frosty morning hunts and the delectable
pigeon-pie are gone, no more to return. They are numbered with those
recollections which help to convince me that the boys of to-day don't
have as good times as we youngsters did in the prime of our busy
outdoor world.