Related posts

Description

This is a story of a scarcely credible abundance, of flocks of birds so vast they made the sky invisible. It is also a story of a collapse into extinction so startling as to provoke a mystery. In the fate of the North American passenger pigeon we can read much of the story of wild Americathe astonishment that accompanied its discovery, the allure of its natural productions the ruthless exploitation of its commodities and the ultimate betrayal of its peculiar genius. And in the birds fate can be read, too, the essential vulnerability of species, the unpredictable passage of life itself.