been very sensibly reduced." At that time "in the New England States and in the more cultivated part of the country, these birds no longer bred in large communities. The instance near Montpelier, in 1849, is the only marked exception that has come within my knowledge. They now breed in isolated pairs, their nests being scattered through the woods and seldom near one another." In 1895, in the A.O.U. check-list, the authors say: "Breeding range now mainly restricted to portions of the Canadas and the northern borders of the United States, as far west as Manitoba and the Dakotas."
At the present time the Passenger Pigeon seems to have entirely disappeared, a small flock in an aviary apparently being all that is left of it alive. Mr. James H. Fleming, of Toronto, kindly sends me the following notes, which I think are of the greatest interest:—
"The disappearance of the Passenger Pigeon in Ontario dates back at least forty years, though as late as 1870 some of the old roosts were still frequented, but the incredible flocks, of which so much has been said, had gone long before that date, and by 1880 the pigeon was practically exterminated, not only in Ontario, but over the greater part of its old range. There are however occasional records of birds taken, for some years later. An immature bird taken September 9, 1887, in Chester County, Pennsylvania, is said to be the last for that part of the State[[4]]; a bird, also immature, is in my collection, taken in December, 1888, at Montreal, Quebec. There are other Montreal records of the same date,[[5]] but with the exception of one taken at Tadousac, July 26, 1889,[[6]] these are the last Quebec records of birds actually taken. In Ontario two were taken at Toronto in 1890, on September 20, and October 11, both immature females, the latter is in my collection, as is an adult female taken by Mr. Walter Brett, at Riding Mountain, Manatoba, May 12, 1892, one of a pair seen. I also have an adult male taken at Waukegon, Illinois, December 19, 1892. I was in New York in the latter part of November, 1892, and was then assured by Mr. Rowland, a well known taxidermist, that he had recently seen several barrels of pigeons that had been condemned as unfit for food; they had come to New York from Indian Territory, and I believe had had their tails pulled out to permit tighter packing. Mr. William Brewster has recorded the sending of several hundred dozens of pigeons to the Boston market in December of the same year, and in January, 1893; these were also from Indian Territory[[7]]; these are the last records we have of the Passenger Pigeon as anything more than a casual migrant. The records ceased after this till 1898, when three birds were taken at points widely apart,
an adult male at Winnipegosis, Manatoba, on April 14,[[8]] an immature male at Owensboro, Kentucky, on July 27, now in the Smithsonian Institution, and another immature bird taken at Detroit, Michigan, on September 14, now in my collection; these are the last records that can be based on specimens.
"In 1903 I published a list including sight records, one as late as May, 1902; this latter is possibly open to doubt, but the ones I gave for 1900 are, I feel confident, correct, as the birds were seen more than once and by different observers. For all practical purposes, the close of the Nineteenth Century saw the final extinction of the Passenger Pigeon in a wild state, and there remained only the small flock, numbering in 1903 not more than a dozen, that had been bred in captivity by Prof. C. O. Whitman, of Chicago; these birds are the descendants of a single pair, and have long ago ceased to breed. It was in an effort to obtain fresh blood for this flock that I started a newspaper enquiry that brought many replies, none of which could be substantiated as records of the Passenger Pigeon, and many referred to the Mourning Dove. I am aware that there has been lately wide-spread and persistent rumours of the return of the pigeons, but no rumour has borne investigation, and I feel that Prof. Whitman's small flock, now reduced (in 1906) to five birds, are the last representatives of a species around whose disappearance mystery and fable will always gather."
FAMILY DIDIDAE. (L.)
Includes very large and massively-built forms, agreeing with the Columbidae in the truncation of the angle of the mandible, but with the extremity of the cranial rostrum strongly hooked. They were totally incapable of flight, the wing-bones being small, the carina of the sternum aborted, and the caracoidal grooves shallow and separated from one another.
Two genera: Didus and Pezophaps.