The passenger pigeon, whose name derived from the French word passager, meaning “passing by” due to its migratory habits was a bird similar to the mourning dove that was endemic to North America.
The adult male had grey upperparts tinged with olive brown and a darker slate grey lower back and rump. The wings were pale grey with irregular black spots and dark brown primaries and secondaries with a narrow white edge. The two central tail feathers were brown, while the rest of the tail was white. On the underparts, the breast was pink, and the belly was white.
The head, nape, and hindneck were blue-grey and on the sides of the neck and upper mantle were display feathers that were bronze, violet, or gold, depending on the light. The bill was black, the eyes were red with a purple eye-ring, and the legs and feet were a bright coral colour.
Female passenger pigeons were duller and slightly smaller than the male. The upperparts were brown, and the lower throat and breast were greyish-brown fading to white on the belly. The wings had more spots than the male and the outer edges of the primaries were edged with buff.
On the head, the forehead, crown, and nape were greyish-brown and the feathers on the side of the neck were less iridescent than the male. The eye was orange with a grey-blue orbital ring, and the legs and feet were a paler red.
The passenger pigeon was found across the northern and eastern parts of North America where it lived in deciduous forests and constantly migrated within its range in search of food and shelter. Out of breeding season it travelled south, spending winters in large swamps or forested areas across the southern United States as well as Cuba and Mexico in particularly severe winters.
At the height of its population, it was estimated that numbers of passenger pigeons reached 5 billion, accounting for up to 40 percent of the total bird population of America. Colonies of breeding passenger pigeons were so large they were referred to as cities which could measure thousands of hectares in size. They travelled in huge flocks sometimes over a kilometre wide, in narrow columns that twisted and turned, similar to the murmurations of starlings.
Marvelling at one of these spectacles, Audubon wrote:
In the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens a few miles beyond Hardensburgh, I observed the Pigeons flying from north-east to south-west, in greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before, and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within the reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence, and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for every flock that passed. In a short time finding the task which I had undertaken impracticable, as the birds poured in in countless multitudes, I rose, and counting the dots then put down, found that 163 had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more the farther I proceeded. The air was literally filled with Pigeons; the light of noon-day was obscured as by an eclipse, the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose.
Deforestation and hunting contributed to the species’ rapid decline and in less than a century the breeding population had shrunk to such a size that it could no longer propagate. The last wild bird was shot in 1901, and Martha, the final bird kept in captivity, died on the 1st September 1914, in Cincinnati Zoo.
The Carolina parrot, now usually known as the Carolina parakeet or Carolina conure, was a small green neotropical parrot that was native to the eastern, Midwest, and Great Plains of the United States.
It had mostly green plumage that was lighter on the underparts with yellow edges on the outer primaries and bottom of the thighs. The head and shoulders were yellow with an orange forehead and face that extended behind the eyes and upper cheeks. The eyes were dark with a white skin surround, the beak was pale, and the legs and feet were light brown. Males and females had identical plumage, but the male was slightly larger.
Carolina parrots lived in large, noisy flocks of up to 300 birds in wetland forests along rivers and swamps. It ate the seeds of forest trees such as sycamore, cypress, beech, elm, and pine, as well as thistles and sandspurs. It also ate the toxic seeds of the cocklebur, a coarse flowering plant, which is usually causes animals who consume it to get sick and eventually die.
However, Carolina parrots had adapted to safely consume cocklebur. Although the plant did not harm it, the toxins accumulated in the bird’s body, so its flesh was probably poisonous.
Audubon noted that cats apparently died after eating Carolina parrots.
Genetic studies on stuffed Carolina parrots have shown that their extinction happened quickly with no signs of the inbreeding prevalent in species that undergo a gradual decline.
Several theories have been suggested to explain the species’ extinction. Deforestation, competition with honeybees for nesting spaces, the pet trade, and a mysterious poultry disease have all been put forward as reasons for the bird’s demise.
However, Carolina parrots were regarded as pests particularly due to their fondness for stripping orchards bare of their fruit. And the most likely explanation is that they were shot out of existence. Audubon himself observed the slaughter of many of the birds:
Do not imagine, reader, that all these outrages are borne without severe retaliation on the part of the planters. So far from this, the Parakeets are destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, shriek, fly round about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few hours, and have procured a basketful of these birds at a few shots, in order to make choice of good specimens for drawing the figures by which this species is represented in the plate now under your consideration.
The last captive Carolina parrot died in 1918 in Cincinnati Zoo in the same cage as Martha, the last passenger pigeon, who had died 4 years earlier.
The pied duck was a North American seaduck and the first to go extinct after the widespread transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, commodities, technology, human populations, diseases, culture, and ideas between the New World and the Old World, known as the Columbian Exchange.
Now, more commonly referred to as the Labrador duck, the pied duck was also known as the skunk duck. The surf scoter and the common goldeneye also shared the name pied duck, which has made interpreting old written records of the species somewhat difficult.
It had a short, squat body, with strong feet located at the back of the body, and an oblong head with beady eyes, and a bill that was almost as long as its head.
The male had black and white plumage similar to that of an eider although the wings were almost completely white except for the primaries. The female was grey overall.
It had two enlargements above the nostrils and a bony, round bulla the puffed out to the left hand side similar to the eiders’ and harlequin ducks’ asymmetric bullae. The bill was soft and had a wide, flattened tip with numerous lamellae, which enabled it to probe mud in search of food. It mostly ate small molluscs and crustaceans, but may have occasionally supplemented its diet with snails. Some fishermen were able to catch it with fishing lines baited with mussels.
Audubon observed it foraging for food:
The Pied Duck seems to be a truly marine bird, seldom entering rivers unless urged by stress of weather. It procures its food by diving amidst the rolling surf over sand or mud bars; although at times it comes along the shore, and searches in the manner of the Spoonbill Duck. Its usual fare consists of small shell-fish, fry, and various kinds of sea-weeds, along with which it swallows much sand and gravel. Its flight is swift, and its wings emit a whistling sound. It is usually seen in flocks of from seven to ten, probably the members of one family.
The pied duck was probably always a rare species, but between 1850 and 1870 it suffered a serious decline. Reasons for its extinction are not clear. Although it was hunted for food, it was said to taste bad, rotted quickly, and therefore was not in high demand. However, although very few pied duck eggs were collected they may have been over harvested for food,
Alternatively, the growth in human population and increased fishing on the east coast of America may have led to a decline in the shellfish and mussels it ate on its wintering grounds. Or the human influence on the coastal ecosystems in North America may have caused it to leave the east coast in search of a new habitat where it struggled to survive. By the late 19th century it was extinct with the last known sighting occurring in Elmira, New York in 1878 where it was shot and killed by a teenage boy. Unfortunately by the time a local birder had paid a visit to the family of the boy, the pied duck had already been plucked and eaten.
