Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/85

 Rh and hunters in former years, are, like the immense herds of the American bison which roamed over the great plains of the West in countless thousands but a couple of decades ago, things of the past, probably never to be seen again.

In fact, the extermination of the Passenger Pigeon has progressed so rapidly during the past twenty years that it looks now as if their total extermination might be accomplished within the present century. The only thing which retards their complete extinction is that it no longer pays to net these birds, they being too scarce for this now, at least in the more settled portions of the country, and also, perhaps, that from constant and unremitting persecution on their breeding grounds they have changed their habits somewhat, the majority no longer breeding in colonies, but scattering over the country and breeding in isolated pairs.

Mr. William Brewster, in his article "On the Present Status of the Wild Pigeon," etc., writes as follows: "In the spring of 1888 my friend, Captain Bendire, wrote me that he had received news from a correspondent in central Michigan to the effect that wild pigeons had arrived there in great numbers and were preparing to nest. Acting on this information, I started at once, in company with Mr. Jonathan Dwight, jr., to visit the expected 'nesting' and learn as much as possible about the habits of the breeding birds, as well as to secure specimens of their skins and eggs.