McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson CV · Part 10: Elephants, the sea and a happy life
111. The Passenger Pigeon (Audubon)
Goal: Your child describes Audubon's eyewitness account of the passenger pigeon flocks and learns what happened to the bird.
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- A notebook or lined paper and a pencil
What's in the book
From John James Audubon's writings. In autumn 1813, between Henderson and Louisville, Kentucky, he sees pigeons in such numbers that they darken the noonday sun; he tries to count the flocks, watches a hawk attack, and describes a night roost where hunters gather. A note says the wild pigeon is growing scarcer every year.
The lesson, step by step
About the author
The book says John James Audubon (b. 1780, d. 1851) was a celebrated American ornithologist. He lived for a time in Henderson, Kentucky, studied birds while working in trade, and in 1826 went to England to publish his great "Birds of America."
Words and meanings
The words and meanings are printed at the end of the lesson. Read a few together before the reading, so they don't trip your child up:
Aerial, belonging or pertaining to the air.
Mast, the fruit of oak and beech or other forest trees.
Rendezvous, an appointed or customary place of meeting.
Perambulate, to walk through.
Your child reads each meaning aloud, then uses the word in a sentence of their own.
Read aloud
Your child reads the lesson aloud, a few paragraphs at a time. Some lines to watch for:
the light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse
Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole men.
Talk about it
SayHow did Audubon try to count the pigeons? Why did he have to give up?
SayWhat happened when the hawk attacked the flock? Find the words he uses.
SayThe note in the book says the wild pigeon was "becoming scarcer every year." Why might that have been happening?
What happened next
Tell your child that the passenger pigeon, once perhaps the most common bird in North America, is now extinct: the last one died in a zoo in 1914. Talk about how Audubon's account helps us know what was lost.
Tell it back
Close the book.
SayTell me what Audubon saw, as if you were standing beside him on that hill.
Older children can write it as a diary entry.