fed on the stooked ’corn’ [i.e. grain crops, not maize].118 The first hint in island records of their decline and impending extinction is in 1861, when Bagtser (1861) did not include them in his lengthy list of the island's bird species, while in the same year Sutherland’s (1861) description of them as ”strangers from the south”, and his use of the word ’occasionally’, when saying they visited the fields in search of grain, suggests that they were no longer common. Then, in the Questionnaire of 1876 we get useful retrospective evidence on the timing of their decline from some elderly island residents who answered the question ”Were wild pigeons ever here?”: two of the twelve respondents recollected they were last common ”thirty years ago” lie. the 18403), while another said there had been none "for the last twenty years” (i.e. since the mid-1850s).‘19 Thus Bain's (1891) statement that only a rare straggler was seen on the island may not be current, though he believed that flocks were still visiting the neighbouring provinces. His comment that "it is not the want of food , but the destructive propensity of humanity which has frightened away the pigeons” seems not to be referring to the treatment of the bird on the island, since he seems to have been aware of the massive decline of the species elsewhere in North America. At the same time, though there is evidence that there had been the same large-scale shooting of the birds on the island as there had been elsewhere in North America‘zo, Bain’s reference to ”our well-cultivated 118 Also, John Brooks, who had immigrated to the island in 1822, said that “in old times the farmers had to keep their eyes open, lest the pigeons should snatch up all their seed grain" (Questionnaire 1876). 119 I note also that Godfrey (1954) quotes MacSwain (1908) that the last bird was seen in 1857, though, as Godfrey notes, other records (he cites Sutherland 1861 and Bain 1891) suggest later sightings than this. ‘20 The only actual contemporary records that l have come across of the birds being shot on the island is that of Benjamin Chappell's son “shooting pidgins" at "Mr. Bowyers" on 23 August 1799 [the place was probably in Lot 48 across the harbour from Charlottetown — see footnote 53 (Chappell 1775-1818), and that of Seymour (1840) mentioned in footnote 116. However we have useful retrospective evidence in the Questionnaire of 1876: one of the respondents claimed to have killed “fifteen at a shot", while another said that he knew of a man who had killed 30 “at one shot“. (These numbers are not likely to be exaggeration, since they are not dissimilar to the numbers recorded in the United States by Forbush (1917) (p. 42): “dozens at a single shot", and “seventy-one birds killed by two shots") I should add here a belated reference to the shooting of passenger pigeons during the French period, which I have come across since the publication of my French period report (Sobey 2002): it occurs in the long letter that Jean-Pierre Roma wrote to the minister from Martinique (11 March to 14 May 1750), where he refers to the 251 country” does highlight the fact that by 1891 there was no longer the large amount of natural forest habitat, and especially of beech woods, suitable for the passenger pigeon, as there had been prior to European settlement.121 ANALYSIS The records — Twenty of the twenty-five terrestrial mammal species likely to have occurred on Prince Edward Island in the early years of European settlement have entered the written records of the British period.122 As is evident in Table 2-1, for all of the larger animals (from the hare in size upward), there is a continuous record, with most recorders noting their presence. The seven omissions are all small mammals: the five species of shrew that occur on the island were treated as one species, as were the three species of bat, and one of the five species of native mice and voles went unrecorded.123 At the same time, as we have seen, a few recorders erroneously reported that the mole, the hedgehog, the beaver, and the moose occurred on the island, or had occurred in the past. The belief that the beaver and moose had occurred would seem to have been due to the mis-identification of caribou antlers for those of the moose, and of old dams of some sort or other, for those of the beaver. The mole did occur on the adjacent "chasse aux toun‘res (tourterelles probablemenf)“ [i.e. ‘pigeon— hunting'] as an occurrence on the island. [Referencez PAC, AC, C118, Vol. 29; I found the reference in the typescript copy at UPEI: Pierre Margry, Vol. 4, p. 36]. 12‘ Forbush (1917) (p. 42) noted the destruction of the forests "particularly the beech woods, which furnished the birds with a chief supply of food", as being a factor in the decline of the number of pigeons in the United States. 122 My figure of 25 native species is based on Cameron (1958), who carried out the only published scientific study of the island‘s mammalian fauna: he listed 32 species for the island. Subtracting the five of his species that were introduced in historic times (Norway rat, house mouse, striped skunk, racoon, and white-tailed deer [introduced briefly but did not become established]) leaves 27 native species. However, among these 27 he included four for which there is no firm evidence: the moose, fisher, beaver and mole — subtracting these leaves 23. And he was not aware that the caribou and the wolf had occurred on the island: adding these gives 25 native mammal species likely to have been present on Prince Edward Island at the time of European settlement. A more recent list drawn up by the Atlantic Canada Conservation Data Centre adds a bat and a shrew, and the recently arrived coyote (ACCDC 2004), but also perpetuates earlier errors by including the fisher and the beaver. ‘23 The species that was overlooked was the woodland jumping mouse (Napaeozapus insignis), a rare species that was first recorded on the island by Cameron (1958).