Sad is the fate of a Last Survivor, the lone lingering member of a species. Mateless, childless, friendless, he can only sit and brood upon the fate that has left him in a world whence all his kind has vanished. Such a bitter fate is that of the heath-cock of Martha's Vineyard. Once his kind filled the woods from Maine to Virginia, but hunters' guns reduced their numbers to a single flock which found refuge on Martha's Vineyard. Forest fires decimated the flock until in 1927 there remained only eleven heath cocks,...
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