Passenger Pigeons, 100 Years Gone

Passenger pigeon
Environmental Writer Jim O’Neill had a sad but fascinating article in The Record earlier this week, about the demise a century ago (Sept. 1, 1914)  of the Passenger Pigeon, once the most numerous bird on Earth.

The old lithograph from Frank Leslie’s Weekly above, courtesy of the Library of Congress, is of a Passenger Pigeon shooting match just outside of Jersey City in the 1860s. The two-day match involved the killing of hundreds of birds.

The link is here.

The article accompanying the lithograph follows. The match drew more than 10,000 people, according to the article.

Tomorrow: All about the phrase “stool pigeon.”

Passenger pigeon-001

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