Todd,

The 1874 date is definitely early enough. The last matches shot with passenger pigeons would have been in the very early 1880's.

The guy I'm helping with photos for the book? Yeah, I just made his day. I sent him a copy of my tintype that shows a pair of actual passenger pigeon trappers with three live decoy pigeons in the photo.


Destry

I have read that in excavating pre Colombian native sites on our continent that there was very little evidence that passenger pigeon remains were present in any significant amounts in the garbage dumps of the early settlements. It can be theorized that the western movement of colonial farmer settlers provided vast amounts of of food resulting in a population explosion of this bird. I believe I may have read this in either of the1491 or 1493 books.

That wasn't the deal, they didn't feed in farm fields. They were mast crop feeders, hence the main reason for extinction being the cutting of the large timber tracts in the midwest.


DLH