The Passenger Pigeon

PASSENGER PIGEON (Columba Migratoria)

Upper bird, male ; lower, female

The

Passenger Pigeon

BY

W. B. MERSHON

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 From "American Ornithology," by Alexander Wilson	9
III	The Passenger Pigeon From "Ornithological Biography," by John James Audubon	25
IV	As James Fenimore Cooper Saw It	41
V	The Wild Pigeon of North America By Chief Pokagon, in "The Chautauquan"	48
VI	The Passenger Pigeon From "Life Histories of North American Birds," by Charles Bendire	60
VII	Netting the Pigeons By William Brewster, in "The Auk"	74
VIII	Efforts to Check the Slaughter By Prof. H. B. Roney	77
IX	The Pigeon Butcher's Defense By E. T. Martin, in "American Field"	93
X	Notes on a Vanished Industry	105
XI	Recollections of "Old Timers"	119
XII	The Last of the Pigeons	141
XIII	What Became of the Wild Pigeon? By Sullivan Cook, in "Forest and Stream"	163
XIV	A Novel Theory of Extinction By C. H. Ames and Robert Ridgway	173
XV	News from John Burroughs	179
XVI	The Pigeon in Manitoba By George E. Atkinson	186
XVII	The Passenger Pigeon in Confinement By Ruthven Deane, in "The Auk"	200
XVIII	Nesting Habits of the Passenger Pigeon By Dr. Morris Gibbs, in "The Oölogist"	209
XIX	Miscellaneous Notes	217

ILLUSTRATIONS
The Passenger Pigeon By Louis Agassiz Fuertes	Frontispiece 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

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930.

The longest-living author of this work died in 1943, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

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