The passenger pigeon:
Not
very long ago, there used to be millions and millions of passenger
pigeons in North America. They got their name because they often
used to travel to new places to look for food. They flew in large
flocks. These flocks were sometimes so big they blocked out the
sun. Passenger pigeons lived in oak and beech forests. In the 1850s
people began to cut down the forests to make way for farms. They
used the wood for building and burning. The birds nesting places
were destroyed. In addition hunters killed millions of nesting passenger
pigeons each year for food. The passenger pigeons only laid one
egg each spring , so they couldn't have enough babies to replace
the birds being killed. The last passenger pigeon was seen in 1914.
