On Tuesday, Joel Greenberg's book on passenger pigeons will be released.
"A Feathered River Across the Sky" is the fruit of years of research, a
lot of it in Ohio, into the natural and unnatural history of this
utterly unique and remarkable bird.
        A hundred years ago, the last pigeon died in the Cincinnati Zoo, and
the last widely-known specimen taken in the wild had been shot in Ohio's
Pike County in 1900; it now rests in the Ohio Historical Society about a
mile from where I sit. In one week in 1861, Circleville businesses
shipped 215,000 pigeons in barrels to epicures on the east coast. In the
1880s, you could buy a pair of live cardinals in the Columbus market for
two dollars, an amount that would have bought you five hundred
pigeons--alive, or freshly killed--in the same venue.
        The story of this bird provides one superlative after another, as well
as great pathos; our own species comes out not looking good at all. I've
read drafts of this work, and recommend it highly. Greenberg's web site
"Project Passenger Pigeon" is found at
http://passengerpigeon.org/newbook.html .  If you liked "Hope is the
Thing with Feathers," you will be enthralled by this book.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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