Page 33 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

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EXTINCT SPECIES 11
On Funk Island, a favorite breeding-place, the great auk was ex- terminated in 1840, and in Iceland in 1844. Many natives ate this bird with relish, and being easily captured, either on land or sea, the commercialism of its day soon obliterated the species. The last living specimen was seen in 1852, and the last dead one was picked up in Trinity Bay, Ireland, in 1853. There are about 80 mounted and unmounted skinsinexistence,fourskeletons,andquiteanumberofeggs. Anegg is worth about $1200 and a good mounted skin at least double that sum.
The Labrador Duck,—Camptorhynchus lahradoricus (Gmel.). ,
This handsome sea-duck, of a species related to the eider ducks of arctic waters, became totally extinct about 1875, before the scientific world evenknewthatitsexistencewasthreatened. Withthisspecies,theexact and final cause of its extinction is to this day unknown. It is not at all probable, however, that its unfortunate blotting out from our bird fauna was due to natural causes, and when the truth becomes known, it is very probable that the hand of man will be revealed.
The Labrador duck bred in Labrador, and once frequented our Atlantic coast as far south as Chesapeake Bay; but it is said that it never was very numerous, at least during the twenty-five years preceding its disappearance. Aboutthirty-fiveskinsandmountedmuseumspecimens are all that remain to prove its former existence, and I think there is not even one skeleton.
The Pallas Cormorant,—Carbo perspicillatus, (Pallas).-—In 1741, when the Russian explorer, Commander Bering, discovered the Bering or Commander Islands, in the far-north Pacific, and landed upon them, healsodiscoveredthisstrikingbirdspecies. Itsplumagebothaboveand below was a dark metallic green, with blue iridescence on the neck and purpleontheshoulders. Apaleringofnakedskinaroundeacheyesug- gestedtheLatinspecificnameofthisbird. ThePallascormorantbecame totally extinct, through causes not positively known, about 1852.
The Passenger Pigeon, —Ectoptstes migratoria, (Linn.).—We place this bird in the totally-extinct class, not only because it is extinct in a wild state, but only one solitary individual, a twenty-year-old female in the Cincinnati Zoological Gardens, now remains alive. One living specimen and a few skins, skeletons and stuffed specimens are all that remain to show for the uncountable millions of pigeons that swarmed over the United vStates, only yesterday as it were!
Thereisnodoubtaboutwherethosemillionshavegone. Theywent down and out by systematic, wholesale slaughter for the market and the pot, before the shotguns, clubs and nets of the earliest American pot- hunters. Wherevertheynestedtheywereslaughtered.
It is a long and shameful story, but the grisly skeleton of its Michigan chaptercanbesetforthinafewwords. In1869,fromthetownofHart- ford, Mich., three car loads of dead pigeons were shipped to market each dayforfortydays,makingatotalof11,880,000birds. Itisrecordedthat another Michigan town marketed 15,840,000 in two years. (See Mr. W. B. Mershon's book, "The Passenger Pigeon.")