1. Craig (1911) 408; New York minister in Wicks 108.
2. Craig (1911) 410; a life on the wing in French 80; John James Audubon 320.
3. Hudson Bay in Mitchell 92; Mississippi in Lincecum 194–95; Maryland in E. Grant 28.
4. “Pigeon hosts” in Forest and Stream (1913) 792; Narragansett in Schorger (1955) 254.
5. Mitchell 84.
6. A. Wilson 108.
7. “Flight was very rapid” in Mitchell 84; Heriot in Wright (1911) 350.
8. Clait Braun, e-mail, July 21, 2011.
9. Fleming in Mitchell 169.
10. King v–vi.
11. Ibid., 121–22.
12. Schorger (1955) 201–02. The three scientists referred to are John Leonard, University of Illinois (Chicago), Ken Brock, and Stan Temple, University of Wisconsin–Madison. The first two looked at the question at my request.
13. Ibid., 204.
14. Kalm 61; Bishop 54.
15. Lincecum 194–95.
16. Butler in Leonard 165–67. See Kirtland 68.
17. Forty-two genera in Schorger (1955) 36–45; Mitchell 101–02.
18. Williams 145.
19. Ibid., 143. See Lalonde and Roitberg 1303 and Sork et al. 528–41.
20. Schorger (1955) 126–27; Ellsworth and McComb 1554.
21. Thoreau in Cruikshank 104; and “bag of marbles” in Roberts 585.
22. Pokagon in Mershon 59.
23. Benkman, e-mail to author.
24. Bertram 76.
25. “Blue wave” in Schaff 107; “rolling cylinder” in Wheaton 442; fecundity of forest in Scherer 32.
26. Scott County in Viroqua Censor (WI) and Indiana Farmer; Tennessee in Wright (1911) 442.
27. Cook in Mershon 164–66.
28. Cumberland Daily News. Schorger did not think it credible that the pigeons would just sit there getting squashed as their comrades in ever-increasing quantities rested on their backs. He thought it more likely that each bird perched on a branch that bowed downward to make it appear the birds were actually on top of each other. But the illusion, if such it was, presented itself often.
29. Webber 305–08.
30. Ibid.
31. Casto 11.
32. Ibid., 11–12.
33. Indianapolis Star. Also in G. Wilson 16:442.
34. Tennessee in Wright (1911) 442; Black River in Hall 56–58.
35. Hall 56–58; chemical release in T. M. Harris 179–80; air was so impregnated in Revoil 8.
36. Gonterman 1–50. This is a virtually forgotten work, overlooked by Schorger and others. From the passion Gonterman expresses in his introduction—“the extermination of the passenger pigeon … is a disgrace to civilization”—it is easy to surmise that the story of the bird had invaded his youthful consciousness as it has so many who know it. And being from Kentucky, he had probably read the accounts of his state by Wilson and Audubon a century before and become intrigued by what had happened to the roosting places. Through questionnaires and interviews, he solicited from the old-timers firsthand information on the local status of the bird, including the location and size of the roosts.
37. Schorger (1955) 87.
38. Seton 523. See Atkinson 7.
39. Coale 254–55.
40. Mershon 50–51.
41. Craig (1911) 420–21. See Whitman (1919) 120.
42. Seventy to a hundred twigs in Mershon 205; structures often persisted in Schaff 107.
43. Pike in Wright (1910) 436; “military precision” in French 56; “avenues … one mile” in French 12–13.
44. Josselyn in Wright (1910) 436; New Hampshire in Wright (1911) 358; Sparta in Fond du Lac Commonwealth.
45. Lincecum 194–95.
46. Giraud 184–85.
47. French 49.
48. Fond du Lac Commonwealth.
49. Deane (1896) 236. Deane attributed the tilting to incubation during cold spells when the bird’s wing would cover the eggs for warmth. But pigeon experts David Blockstein and Garrie Landry both doubt that the pigeons would have incubated in that way, as no other bird does. The passage is based, however, on Deane’s firsthand account published in the Auk, so I don’t doubt he described what he saw. Landry provided the plausible explanation adopted here.
50. Detroit Post and Tribune.
51. Nutritious milk in Hegde 238; milk-laden squab in Dixon.
52. Failure to dispense in French 58; Martin (1879) 385.
53. “Like drunken men” in Whitewater Register (WI); they hiked their way in French 30–31; human disturbance in Godwin 176–78.
54. Schorger (1955) 125.
55. 1976 in Greenberg (2002) 402; 1740 in Kalm 57; Schoolcraft 381.
56. Marsden 146–47.
57. J. J. Audubon 35; Welsh 165–66. Audubon refers to foxes in Kentucky, which at that time period would likely have been gray rather than red.
58. Goshawks are the most brazen in Bent 133; J. J. Audubon 242.
59. Trautman 209–10.
60. Wrong kind of hit in Bertram 70.
61. Scott 9–10.
62. Kelly 339–42. See Ostfeld et al. and McShea.
63. The American-chestnut was a mast producer that comprised 25 percent of the trees growing in the Appalachian Mountains. Chestnut blight (Endothia parasitica), an airborne fungus from Asia first imported into the United States around 1905, infected trees at a rate of fifty miles a year. (This had no impact at all on passenger pigeons, for by 1905 the species was likely gone from the wild.) Over the next few decades, an estimated thirty billion trees died, practically the entire population. Mast-dependent organisms must have been devastated during the period between the disappearance of the chestnuts and their replacement by other trees. From an ecological perspective the loss was even more significant in that the chestnut varied much less in the quantity of its annual mast than did the oaks and hickories that replaced it. At least one study of chestnuts, based on estimates, found that over ten years chestnuts did not experience a single mast failure, and that the nuts produced during low-production years were just less than half of what appeared during high years (Diamond et al. 196–201). The forests were more stable when American chestnuts still lived. Unlike the chestnut blight, gypsy moths were deliberately brought, to Medford, Massachusetts, in 1868 to create disease-resistant hybrids with native silk moths. Some, however, escaped their confines. They found the New England woodlands hospitable enough to become a serious problem by 1889, when the first outbreak was discovered. They have since spread into the Midwest, where they are now firmly established. Gypsy moths are cyclical and can at their peak denude oaks of their foliage, eventually killing them. A major moth predator is the white-footed mouse, though The Yearbook of Agriculture 1949 took comfort in the demonstration that the aerial application of DDT effectively controlled the moth.
64. Webb 367–75.
65. Ellsworth and McComb 1548–58.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., 1553.
68. Noss 234.
69. Ibid., 235–36.
70. “One of the most disastrous” in Kriska and Young 3; ideal-size food in Raithel 21–23.
71. Life cycle of tick in Ostfeld et al. 326; Blockstein (1998) 1831. See Jones et al. 1023–32.
72. Komar and Spielman 164.
73. This discussion on lice is based on Clayton and Price; Dunn; and Friederici.
1. Interview with Paul Gardner, Midwest Regional Director, Archaeological Conservancy.
2. Krech 183.
3. Interview with Terrance Martin, Illinois State Museum.
4. Parmalee (1959) 62–63.
5. Guilday 1.
6. Guilday and Parmalee 163–73.
7. Orlandini 73–75.
8. Jackson 186.
9. Krech 36–37; S. Nelson 8–16; Neumann 389–410.
10. Parmalee (1958) 174.
11. Mitchell 17; Wright (1910) 429.
12. Mooney 280; Mitchell 18.
13. Fradkin 415–16.
14. Hager 92–103.
15. Kalm 64.
16. Schorger (1955) 140.
17. Dodge 343.
18. Krech 24.
19. Lawson 50–51.
20. Radin 112.
21. Atkinson in Blanchard 159.
22. Bunnell 186.
23. Jackson 177.
24. G. Harris 450.
25. The remainder of the chapter is based on the remarkable paper by Fenton and Deardorff 289–315.
1. Cook 17–18.
2. Wright (1911) 361; O’Callaghan 45.
3. Schorger (1938) 473.
4. Ibid., 471, 475.
5. Wright (1910) 431, 434.
6. Wright (1910) (Stork) 435; Watson 410.
7. Mathew 1–3.
8. See Powell.
9. A. Wilson 399.
10. Ibid., 400.
11. J. J. Audubon 322.
12. Ibid., 320–21.
13. M. Audubon 200–03. She presents both what Audubon wrote of Wilson and the exact quote of what Wilson wrote about Audubon.
14. Elsa Guerdrum Allen wrote, “Wilson’s greater exactness, his patient method and his lucid and honest descriptions mark him unquestionably as the better ornithologist.” As for the feud, Schorger (in Scott 12) commented, “Audubon did not relish another star in the ornithological firmament and his treatment of Wilson does not rebound to his credit.”
15. Wallace Craig, who studied the only flock subjected to scientific scrutiny, found Audubon’s account so full of errors he spent the last page of his paper criticizing it in detail.
16. French 162–63.
17. Mershon 49.
18. Nevins 181–82.
19. Raper.
20. Cleveland Plain Dealer.
21. Newspapers in Schapper 102; “very abundant” in Nelson 120; 1881 in Butler (1898) 763.
22. South Shore Country Club Magazine 34.
23. Eenigenburg 12–14.
24. McKenney 352–53.
25. F. 149–50.
26. Wharton 1–2.
27. Dodson clippings.
28. Stratton-Porter 196–98.
29. Franklin xxxviii–xxiv.
30. Robinson 568.
31. Cooper chapter 22.
32. Winter online 1–7.
33. Clarke 266–76.
34. Upton 1–4.
35. Ibid., 21, 50.
36. Ibid., 105.
37. Hewitt 82–85.
38. Upton 231–32.
39. Ibid., 231.
40. Ward.
41. Lake Shore Museum Center archives.
42. Ward. Also see Holland, Michigan, Evening Sentinel.
43. Ward; Muskegon Chronicle 1937.
44. Muskegon Chronicle 1951.
1. Biggar 332.
2. Powers 105–11.
3. Mitchell 21, 106.
4. Wright (1911) 356.
5. 1759: Wright (1911) 435; A. Wilson 401.
6. Bourne 563–64.
7. Boston and Granby: Judd 351–52; Schorger (1955) 131; Benwell 72–75.
8. French 177.
9. DeVoe 175–76.
10. Ibid., 172–73; Byrd: Wright (1911) 432.
11. M’Neill in G. Wilson 14:570; E. Wilson (1934) 164.
12. Mitchell 21.
13. Madison: Hamel 18; Chicago: Home Guide.
14. Nessmuk 106; 1770s in Wright (1911) 350; Althouse in Mitchell 107.
15. Roasted pigeons in Faux 22; Belknap 137–38; Illinois in French 184.
16. L. Thomas 105–110.
17. Ibid., 93–95, 98–101.
18. Soap in French 206; Coudersport in Thompson 14.
19. Saint-Jérôme in Schorger (1955) 132; Ontario in Mitchell 108; McKnight in Schorger (1955) 132.
20. Brickell 186; Native healer in Larocque 49.
21. A. Wilson 399; British ornithologist in Schorger (1955) 52; West Virginia in Brown 176.
22. Jesuit and La Hontan in Mitchell 16.
23. Prairie Farmer 83.
24. Michigan in Cass County Republican 3; Pennsylvania in Rupp 131; Eden, Wisconsin, in Fond du Lac Reporter; Iowa in Bond 525.
25. Goss in Roberts 586.
26. Kalm 63; Van Campen in Armstrong 10.
27. Massicotte 77.
28. Wisconsin in F. E. Jones; Hine 327; Minnesota in Swanson 116–17.
29. Schorger (1955) 53.
30. Jasper County in Galveston Daily News (1875) 2; Ibid., (1881) 3; Leon County in Casto 13.
31. Wright (1910) 431.
32. Quebec in Mitchell 62; Hussey 5.
33. Cook in Mershon 167–68.
34. Texas in Casto 14; Ontario in Mitchell 109–12.
35. Mitchell 109–12.
36. MacKay 262.
37. R.
38. Harpel 205.
39. During 1850s in Answers.com 2–4; Wisconsin in Price 19; as early as 1842 in Schorger (1955) 144–45.
40. French 177; Grant County Herald.
41. 1842 in French 98; 1880: ibid., 103.
42. Mershon 124–25.
43. Roney 346; Allen brothers in Mershon 125.
44. McKinley 407.
45. Pennsylvania in Mershon 126; Phillips: ibid., 109.
46. French 213–15.
47. Original receipt in possession of Milwaukee Public Museum. They provided me with a copy.
48. Forbush (1913) 99.
49. Armstrong 4; Bennett in Traverse 1411.
50. Price 35–36.
51. Merritt 27–31, 109.
52. St. Paul in Swanson 63; Merritt 111.
53. Merritt 113.
54. Ibid., 184–85
55. BMR 395–96.
56. Coale (1922a) 255.
57. C. L. Mann 45–47.
58. Forbush (1913) 99–103.
1. Schorger (1955) 167–68.
2. Wright (1911) 436.
3. Tennessee in Wright (1911) 443; Texas in Casto.
4. St. Lawrence River in Wright (1910) 430; St. Paul in Swanson 133; Orillia, Ontario, in Mitchell 129.
5. Stone 488.
6. Trautman 271.
7. Mitchell 120–21.
8. Hussey 5.
9. Twain 114.
10. Grant 42–43.
11. Mitchell 120.
12. Schorger (1955) 196–97. According to the New England Weekly Journal of April 8, 1740, a mill near Philadelphia “took fire and burned to the ground” likely due to “the Wadding of Guns fired at Wild Pidgeons.”
13. St. Paul in Swanson; Cabot in Brewster (1906) 176.
14. Swivels in Randolph 95; Mather in Schorger (1938) 473; 1662 in Wright (1910) 430; 99 birds in Mitchell 122.
15. Mitchell 119.
16. Kalm 66; New York in Milwaukee Sentinel; 1860 in French 48–49.
17. Wright (1911) 350.
18. Webber 305–08.
19. Sage 69–70.
20. Mitchell 123.
21. “Snap Shot” 194.
22. New England Weekly Journal, April 8, 1740, 2.
23. Schorger interview with Victor Blasezyk, May 31, 1936. All of the shooting incidents recorded here from Wisconsin appear in newspaper clippings collected by Schorger and placed in his Passenger Pigeon Notebooks (two volumes of “Pigeons: Wisconsin Newspapers”), located at the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
24. Ray.
25. Randolph 95–96.
26. 1870s in Trautman 270; lured into pens in Brewster (1889) 289; stuffed pigeons in Wright (1911) 352.
27. Ontario examples in Mitchell 128–29; Mather in Schorger (1938) 473.
28. Armstrong 5.
29. Early in the season in Mershon 108; pigeon baskets in Antique, cover and Baillie notes.
30. Yarnell in Deane (1931) 264–65; Ontario in Mitchell 124; linen in Rupp 133.
31. Typical rig in French 195. See Snyder 10–13, Lincoln, Mitchell 124–27, and Rupp 133–35.
32. French 227.
33. White River in Mershon 109; Benzie County in Maynard 241–42.
34. F.E.S. 50.
35. Sibley 414.
36. Finer grain in Rupp 134; Wisconsin in Milwaukee Journal (1929); angleworms in Barrows 242.
37. Garber 28.
38. Fancy model in W. W. Thompson 15. See Lincoln, Paxson 376–77, and Scherer 40.
39. Found suitable birds in Paxson 378; “John (X)” 299; $5 to $10 in Rupp 133; began his exercise in W. W. Thompson 13.
40. John (X) 299; Scherer 40.
41. W. W. Thompson 16–17.
42. Rupp 132.
43. Beekmantown in R.; Osborne in Mershon 127; Michigan: ibid., 109; Dr. Voorheis in Barrows 245.
44. French 153, 210.
45. Scherer 42; French 177.
46. French 102.
1. St. Joseph Traveler.
2. Competition for fun in Leffingwell 133; ecological context in Price 33. The shooting matches were not without risk, however. On one occasion contestant Hiram Neiswinter missed his pigeon and struck rival Robert Parker instead. “The top of Parker’s head was blown off and his brains was [sic] scattered all around.” (The Carbon Advocate [Leighton, PA], August 19, 1882, 51.)
3. Field shooting in Leffingwell 135; one set of skills in Swanson 258; “character, coolness” in Price 29.
4. E. Thomas 369.
5. Leffingwell 139.
6. E. Thomas 369.
7. Leffingwell 42, 143.
8. Ibid., 136.
9. Rosenthal in Schorger (1955) 160. See Swanson 259, Mitchell 115, and Steele 220.
10. Ontario in Mitchell 117; April-through-September in E. Thomas 372; Forest and Stream in De L. 233.
11. Casto 16.
12. Galveston Daily News (1884) 2.
13. Swanson 258–60.
14. Kennicott Club in Chicago Tribune (August 17, 1872) 6; “grand tournament”: ibid., (September 30, 1877) 7; Peoria in Schorger (1955) 163.
15. E. Thomas 371–72.
16. Greenberg 358–59.
17. Bogardus 300.
18. Ibid., 301–02.
19. Ibid., 302–03.
20. Chicago Tribune (September 27, 1872) 6
21. Ibid., (May 2, 1880) 3.
22. Bogardus 302–03.
23. Schorger (1955) 163.
24. Price 33.
25. Steele 3.
26. Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography.
27. Steele 143, 150.
28. Ibid., 220.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid., 233.
31. Ibid.
32. New York Times (June 21, 1881) 5; New York Times (June 22, 1881) 2.
33. New York Times (June 22, 1881) 2.
34. E. Thomas 372.
35. Czech 26.
36. Joyce 10–15.
37. Wilson, “Kin-ne-quay,” 1.
38. Ibid., 2.
39. Ibid., 3–4.
40. The remainder of this section on Wilson is based on Wilson (1934) and Wilson (1935). This latter note includes the discussion of Partie.
41. “G. D. Smith Succumbs.”
42. This section is based on George D. Smith’s unpublished memoir, 1–6. See also Rumer.
43. John French’s book, in two intriguing sentences that include no further elaboration, also touched on the social aspects of pigeon hunting, but the glimpses provided are decidedly dark and foul. The first is from his pen and appears on page 20: “There are camp-fire stories galore of the carnivals of the slaughter and the orgies of the feasts, when the day’s work was finished, that are better buried in the oblivion of silence.” And the second is from his publisher and editor, Henry Shoemaker, which appears on page 173: “Added to the horrors of squab hunting and killing were orgies of drunkenness that made the scenes in the nesting grounds too hideous to recount.” One can only imagine.
44. Chatfield Democrat (May 13, 1865), (June 3, 1865).
45. Swanson 144–45.
1. Mitchell 109–11. This discussion was substantially aided by the input of the following Ontario experts: Glenn Coady, Nicholas Escott, Michel Gosselin, George K. Peck, and Mark Peck.
2. Fox 102–03.
3. Scherer 38–39.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 41.
6. Ibid.
7. Schorger (1937) 1.
8. Ibid., 4–6.
9. Ibid., 19–20.
10. Kilbourn City Mirror (April 22, 1871).
11. Six hundred in Mershon 117–18; one hundred thousand in Fond du Lac Commonwealth; sixteen in Schorger (1937) 17–18; icehouse in Mershon 113.
12. H. Kelly.
13. Kilbourn City Mirror (May 13, 1871).
14. This paragraph and the next three are from Fond du Lac Commonwealth.
15. Schorger (1937) 12–13.
16. Ibid., 13–14.
17. Roberts 583.
18. Swanson 70.
19. Howland 1976.
20. Hartwick and Tuller 80–81.
21. Ibid., 81.
22. “Tom Tramp”149.
23. Mershon 106–09; Hartwick and Tuller 81.
24. Michigan Tradesman.
25. Souter: ibid; one estimate in Hartwick and Tuller 81.
26. Martin (1914) 478–81.
27. Hartwick and Tuller 81.
28. This and the next two paragraphs from Fenton and Deardorff 314–15.
29. Forty miles in length in Roney 345; “trollops” in Sharkey 6.
30. Charlevoix Sentinel (March 12 and 25, 1878).
31. Timber operators in Northern Tribune (March 9, 1878) Bemis in Charlevoix Sentinel (April 19, 1878).
32. Emmet County Democrat (March 29, 1878).
33. Petoskey: ibid. (April 5 and 12, 1878); Cheboygan in Northern Tribune (April 13, 1878).
34. Charles.
35. Bennet in Sharkey 13; Old Joe in Hedrick 54–55.
36. Peterson 48–49.
37. Laws of Michigan 149–50.
38. Roney 345–49.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Numerous observers in Lawrence and Henkel 25; dismissal of all charges in Emmet County Democrat (May 3 1878), Charlevoix Sentinel (April 26, 1878), and Turner 401–2.
48. Emmet County Democrat (April 19, 1878); Sharkey 8.
49. Sharkey 9.
50. Roney 346; Martin (1879) 385–86; another pigeon merchant in Mershon 93.
51. Potter Journal (April 15, May 13, and June 10, 1880).
52. Detroit Post and Tribune 1.
53. Ibid.
54. Ibid.
55. Ibid.
56. Barrows 215.
57. Mershon 56.
58. Ibid., 56–57.
59. Littlefield 154–59.
60. Chicago Field 314–15. The Atoka account is based on this article.
61. Files of Potter Journal; Thompson 6.
62. Scott 14.
63. Dixon.
64. Adams County in Baraboo Republic; hired two hundred in Daily Data.
65. Scott 15–16; Daily Data.
66. Milwaukee Evening Wisconsin; Schorger (1955) 217.
1. Casto 10.
2. McKinley 410. Daniel McKinley, through his painstaking study of Missouri’s newspapers and other historical documents, is responsible for much of what is known about the bird in that state.
3. Ibid, 411.
4. W. W. Thompson 6.
5. Oconto River and Racine in Schorger (1955) 218; Oviatt in Scherer 30.
6. French 87.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid., 87–88.
9. Ibid., 59–60.
10. 1869 in Blockstein and Tordoff; Griscom 212–16. Accounts of passenger pigeons abandoning young before they were fledged go back a long ways. It seems likely that this was in response to human disturbance, although it was not recognized as such. But starting in the late 1860s, the propensity to leave a nesting site early in the face of disturbance seems to have increased, perhaps in part because it was more discernible among smaller concentrations of birds.
11. Blossburg in French 61; Bailey in Roberts 584; Missouri in McKinley 411.
12. Wisconsin in Schorger (1955) 219; Pope in Casto 6; W. Cook 248.
13. Brewster 285–86. A small nesting of several hundred birds was reported from West Virginia in 1889.
14. Missouri in McKinley 412; Arkansas in Hough (1892) 138.
15. Norfolk in GH 79; Clinton County in Todd 271; winter 1892–93 in Forbush (1913) 76; New York City in Fleming (1907) 236–37.
16. Virginia in Stanstead 403; Iowa in Anderson 239; New Jersey in W. Stone 154; Tennessee in Schorger (1955) 292.
17. Clark 44.
18. Ibid.; Woodruff 88.
19. Indiana in Butler (1898) 763–64; Wisconsin in Schorger (1955) 221; Massachusetts and North Carolina in Forbush (1927) 75.
20. Schorger (1955) 286. If someone had been fortunate enough to have seen a passenger pigeon in the late 1890s, or even worse the early 1900s, he would have had to choose between killing a bird whose very existence was imperiled or have his sighting rejected. Of course the death of a single individual is not likely to cause extinction, although if all the “single individuals” are aggregated, the issue might become a bit blurred with some species, but the rarity of the target ought to weigh on the consciousness of a potential collector. And one could argue that the life of an endangered bird is more important, anyway, than getting credit for seeing something exceedingly scarce. It is also true, though, that just as the loss of an individual won’t determine the fate of a species, especially one such as the passenger pigeon, science doesn’t gain much either in determining whether the pigeon became extinct in the wild in 1900 or 1902 or 1906. But this exercise in historical sleuthing is compelling nonetheless, for it is worthwhile trying to make sure that the end of a great and tragic story is as accurate as possible.
21. Miller and Griscom 130.
22. Mandeville in Forbush (1927) 75; Wisconsin in Schorger (1955) 220; Michigan and Illinois in Deane (1896a).
23. Nebraska in Deane (1896a) 81 and Bruner 84; North Western in Johnson; Clinton in Eaton 385; Ontario in Fleming (1907) 236–37; West Virginia in Buckelew; Jones in Roberts.
24. Shannon in Butler (1898) 764; Texas in Simmons 86; Ontario in Fleming (1903) 66; New Jersey in Chapman 341; Maine in Palmer 299; Wisconsin in Hollister 341; Iowa in Widmann 85 and Anderson 239; Pennsylvania in Paxson 372 and Schorger (1955) 291.
25. Louisiana in McIlhenny 546; Missouri and Pokagon in Deane (1897) 316–17.
26. Neither of these records have previously been published, and I appreciate the assistance of Steve Sullivan at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and Jeremiah Trimble of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.
27. Mitchell 137; Jeremiah Trimble, personal communication.
28. Osprey 12; November in Beckner 55–56.
29. Hough (1899) 88; Schorger (1955) 208.
30. Fleming 66; Moody 81.
31. J. Wood 208; N. Wood 225.
32. Eaton 386; Atkinson 8.
33. Butler (1899) 150 and (1902) 98–99.
34. Dr. McGrannon in Todd 271; Little Rock in Litzke 24; Babcock in Hough (1910).
35. Schorger (1955) 286.
36. Henninger 82; Geoffrey Sea, personal communication.
37. Offered to donate in Cokinos 232; Ohio Conservation Bulletin 17.
38. Cokinos 244.
39. Forbush (1927) 77; Townsend 379–80. Schorger rejected six post-1900 specimen-based reports that may well have been identified correctly, even if some of them are lacking important details. This judgment is based not only on the people who claimed to have seen the specimens but the stature and reliability of their contemporaries who assessed and accepted those claims. The first two of these involve a St. Louis game dealer who told Otto Widmann, Missouri’s leading ornithologist at the time, that he received twelve dozen birds from Arkansas in 1902 and another in a shipment of ducks from Black River, Missouri, in 1906. Widmann thought it unlikely that the dealer would have erred in his identification. Pennsylvania state ornithologist Harvey Surface told the legislature in 1904 that he received a bird the previous year that had been shot out of a flock of seventy-five or eighty. Maine is home for a 1904 record that is based on the observation of a newly killed bird in a taxidermy shop. Forbush and Ora Knight (Maine’s leading ornithologist of his day) found the record credible, as have Ralph Palmer and Peter Vickery. “A Swede” reportedly shot a passenger pigeon at North Bridgeport, Fairfield County, Connecticut, in August 1906. It wound up in the collection of George Hamlin, which is now housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. Fleming sank the record by pointing out that Hamlin never mentioned the bird when he contributed to a 1913 book on Connecticut birds, an assertion that dismisses the possibility that Hamlin acquired it later. And finally, in 1915, octogenarian J. L. Howard sent a bird to Cornell University along with a letter providing a detailed account of his having shot it in 1909. The mount bore a date of 1898, which could have referred to a previous tenant, but Fleming argued Howard was too old to remember whether an incident occurred six years ago or seventeen. In addition to these birds, there is a specimen in the Yale University collection from Bay City, Michigan, that is dated January 24, 1906. But after an examination of the evidence, Kristof Zyskowski (Yale’s bird collection manager), Jon Wuepper (editor of Michigan Birds and Natural History), and I all agree that the 1906 date clearly refers to when the donor received the bird and not when it was killed. And last, a bird supposedly shot in Chicago in 1901 could just as easily have been killed in 1891 (Greenberg (2002) 507).
40. Menard County Illinois History.
41. Purdue 51.
42. Butler (1902) 98–99.
43. Butler (1912) 64. I thank Dr. Stan Hedeen for alerting me to the 1912 paper and Bill Whan for the 1902 paper.
44. Schorger (1955) 223.
45. Merriam in Cutright 152–53; Burroughs in Brinkley 686.
46. Mershon 185, 179.
47. French 172.
48. Hodge (1911) 49–50.
49. American Field (1910) 124–25.
50. Ibid., 125.
51. Ibid.
52. Nests also found in Hodge (1911) 51; Harrington in Anonymous.
53. Hodge (1912) 169–74.
54. Ibid., 174.
55. Ibid., 175.
1. French 180.
2. Milwaukee Journal (September 18, 1935), Milwaukee Journal (June 14, 1898).
3. HM. 539.
4. Deane (1896) 235–37.
5. Ibid., 236.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., 237.
8. Morse 271.
9. Pauly 145–46.
10. Ibid., 162.
11. Deane (1908) 181–83; “my special pets” in Ames 464.
12. Whitman (1899) 334.
13. “passenger pigeon’s instinct”: ibid. The two relevant facts were brought to my attention by David Blockstein.
14. Craig (1913) 95.
15. Pauly 162.
16. Deane (1908) 182.
17. Pauly 161.
18. Schorger (1955) 28; Pauly 162–64.
19. Ehrlinger 5; Cokinos 258.
20. Ehrlinger 5.
21. Ibid., 15; Cincinnati Zoo web page; Cokinos 256–59.
22. Schorger (1955) 29.
23. F. Thompson (1879) 265; Thompson (1881) 122.
24. Herman 78.
25. Ibid., 79.
26. Cokinos 259.
27. Deane (1909) 429.
28. Ibid.; Herman 79–80.
29. Cokinos 264.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., 266.
32. Ibid., 276–79.
33. Shufeldt 30.
34. Ibid., 31.
35. Ibid., 38.
1. Swarth 79; Rhoads 311.
2. French 33, 83.
3. Mershon Papers at Hoyt Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
4. Jason Weckstein, of the Field Museum and an expert on bird parasites, tells me that the possibility exists that some unknown disease may have affected the birds in ways that diminished their capacity to feed, breed, or conduct other vital funcitons without actually leaving telltale piles of corpses. At least one major study focusing on passenger pigeon DNA will be looking for diseases as well.
5. Bucher 7–9, 24, 19–20.
6. Josselyn in Wright (1910) 431; Kalm 58; Smith in Wright (1911) 428.
7. Buttons in Blockstein (2002) “Conservation and Management”5. S. V. Wharram (68) tells of watching a small nesting colony in 1877 in Ohio, which he observed at leisure and where there is no mention of the birds’ being disturbed (it seems to have been on his family’s property). But apart from recalling only one egg per nest, he does not add much to the pool of facts, especially as to the success of the nesting effort. These smaller concentrations may have represented sink populations, birds drawn to an area seemingly suitable in habitat but possessing or missing some attribute that makes it difficult or impossible to reproduce. The most famous North American examples are neotropical migrants such as ovenbirds and wood thrushes that set up territories in Midwestern woodlands, but produce few if any offspring due to parasitism by brown-headed cowbirds.
8. Moose Factory in Mitchell 22; Schorger (1955) 36–43.
9. Schorger (1955) 212; Mitchell 139–40; Todd 270; Jackson and Jackson 769.
10. Mrazek, documentary treatment,
http://e-int.com/messagefrommartha/.
11. Bucher 23; Blockstein (2002) “Conservation and Management”4.
12. Halliday 159. That decline itself fostered increased mortality is related to the Allee effect, named for biologist Warder Clyde Allee. They relate to the “decline in individual fitness as low population size or density, that can result in critical population thresholds below which populations crash to extinction” (Courchamp et al., 2008 Oxford Scholarship Online). See also Reed 232–41.
13. Goodwin 176–78.
14. Cart 7–12. For a 1922 child’s statement on bird conservation, see Greenberg (2008) 384.
15. Ibid., 66.
16. Blumm and Ritchie 126–27.
17. Hornaday 305–08.
18. Tober 159–62; Missouri v. Holland.
19. United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
20. Sixth mass extinction in Estes 301.
21. Blockstein (1989) 63–67; Myers 14–21.
22. Klehm 80–90; Lebbin et al. 318.
23. Lebbin et al. 328.
24. Phys.Org.
25. Lebbin 311; Loomis.
26. Arctic Climate Impact Assessment.
27. Greenberg (2002) 155–61, 174–76.
28. Lebbin et al. 307–9.
29. Ibid., 309–10.
30. Bat Conservation International; B. Miller A2.
31. United States Geological Survey.
32. Ibid., 296–98.
33. Many books, websites, and documentaries have been produced on what can be done to slow or reverse the negative impacts humans have on biodiversity. In addition, numerous private and public organizations actively address these and other environmental issues through research (both by professional and citizen scientists), education of adults and children, involvement in politics, and a broad array of outreach activities to engage as many people as possible. There is a role for everyone in this vital effort.