Books: Archebiosis

THE NOISE OF THEIR WINGS—MacKinlay Kantor—Coward-McCann ($2.50).

In all ages, men's imaginations have been stirred by the flight of birds. No more dramatic flights have been recorded than those of the pastel-colored passenger pigeons—Audubon guessed a billion in one flock—which once streamed across U. S. skies. The speed with which they were slaughtered was no less fabulous than their flights. (In New York, says one report, 40 boatloads went begging at one cent a pigeon, were finally thrown to the hogs.) The last passenger pigeon died in the Cincinnati zoo in 1914. It now...