One morning in 1855, residents of Columbus, Ohio, noticed a “low-pitched hum” in the distance, and clouds gathering on the horizon. The sound increased, according to a later telling, “to a mighty throbbing. Now everyone was out of the houses and stores, looking apprehensively at the growing cloud, which was blotting out the rays of the sun. Children screamed and ran for home. Women gathered their long skirts and hurried for the shelter of stores. Horses bolted. A few people mumbled frightened words about the approach of the millennium, and several dropped on their knees and prayed.”
Greenberg writes the pigeon’s history in so linear a fashion that he hardly pauses to offer an introduction, though an outline of his intentions wouldn’t have hurt this project. (There’s a very short preface.) Feathered River is characterized by its urgency, and by Greenberg’s passion: he uses words like “slaughter” and “carnage” so often that there’s little doubt where his sympathies lie. His tone is mournful; at the end of a chapter on the role of the pigeon in Native cultures, he writes, “The link between a people and a bird started before recorded time and would only conclude with the decimation of the latter. Living for one became more difficult; living for the other impossible.”
By Joel Greenberg (Bloomsbury) Reading Thu 1/23, 6 PM, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, 2430 N. Cannon, naturemuseum.org, free with RSVP to adultprograms@ naturemuseum.org
