Their numbers once did cloud the skies,
And darken the bright sun
When in the air they chose to rise
Some hidden foe to shun.

They shuttled yearly back and forth
Beneath the North and South,
In Spring It was the North they wought
And in the Fall the South

And many perished in the way.
Men held them good to eat
But was it this swept them away?
In fact did them delete?

It is a mystery profound.
Their numbers were so great
And now they nowhere can be found.
So sudden was their fate.

No Passenger Pigeons we see.
They vanished years ago;
And why they vanished utterly,
That no one seems to know.

They loved the spreading beech-nut tree
And fields of ripened grain.
And these to visit they were free
A good meal to obtain.

The pioneers knew pidgeons well
and oft a flock would trap,
Or so the old folk used to tell.
A net the birds would wrap.

Upon the unsuspecting flock
They would let fall a net
Which their escape failed not to block
It cunningly was set.