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Macintosh Picture Format  |  1996-09-10  |  191.8 KB  |  640x310  |  8-bit (238 colors)
   ocr: majestic river.' The passenger pigeon was once the most abundant bird in North America. The naturalist Alexander Wilson estimated that a flock he saw in Kentucky in 1808 numbered at least two billion, two hundred and thirty million. Iti filled the sky from horizon to horizon and took four hours to pass. During the years of west- ward expansion, enormous numbers of eastern chestnut and oak trees, the main source of food for the passenger pigeon, were cleared to make way for farms, homesteads, and towns. Moreover, the birds were believed to be a menace to crops, and, nesting in dense colonies, t ...