Photo by C. O. Whitman (University of Chicago)October 16, 1906.Mr. W. B. Mershon,Dear Sir:—I am much chagrined over my carelessness in overlooking your request for a photo of a young Passenger Pigeon. I had best of intentions, but crowded work threw this out of mind. I should have attended to it at first, had it been easy to get at the picture. I have been away all summer and found things misplaced on my return. I fear it is now too late, but send the picture to be used if you are still able to do so. I shall be very much interested to see your book. I still have two female pigeons and two hybrids between a former male pigeon and the common Ring-dove. The hybrids are unfortunately infertile males.Very truly,C. O. Whitman.
Photo by C. O. Whitman (University of Chicago)
October 16, 1906.Mr. W. B. Mershon,Dear Sir:—I am much chagrined over my carelessness in overlooking your request for a photo of a young Passenger Pigeon. I had best of intentions, but crowded work threw this out of mind. I should have attended to it at first, had it been easy to get at the picture. I have been away all summer and found things misplaced on my return. I fear it is now too late, but send the picture to be used if you are still able to do so. I shall be very much interested to see your book. I still have two female pigeons and two hybrids between a former male pigeon and the common Ring-dove. The hybrids are unfortunately infertile males.Very truly,C. O. Whitman.
October 16, 1906.
Mr. W. B. Mershon,
Dear Sir:—I am much chagrined over my carelessness in overlooking your request for a photo of a young Passenger Pigeon. I had best of intentions, but crowded work threw this out of mind. I should have attended to it at first, had it been easy to get at the picture. I have been away all summer and found things misplaced on my return. I fear it is now too late, but send the picture to be used if you are still able to do so. I shall be very much interested to see your book. I still have two female pigeons and two hybrids between a former male pigeon and the common Ring-dove. The hybrids are unfortunately infertile males.
Very truly,
C. O. Whitman.
Since that time I have expended much effort in following up rumors of the bird's presence in various districts with a view of locating a breeding pair. Not only have I sought to secure a bird to mount, but also to get a live pair, or the eggs while fresh, to assist in the preservation of the pigeon in a partially domesticated state, since the only specimens now living in captivity are those owned by Prof. Whitman of the University of Chicago, who, in writing me, says: "My stock seems to have come to a complete standstill, having raised no young for the last four years. The weakness is due to long inbreeding, as my birds are from a single pair captured about twenty-five years ago in Wisconsin. I have long tried to secure new stock, but have been unsuccessful. A single pair would enable me to save them, for they breed well in confinement.
"I have crossed them with ring doves, and still have three hybrids, but as these are infertile there is no hope of even preserving these half-breeds alive. Of all the wild pigeons in the world the Passenger Pigeon is my favorite. No other pigeon combines so many fine qualities in form, color, strength and perfection of wing power."
I am enabled through the kindness of Prof. Whitman to exhibit a photograph of one of his younger birds taken in his aviary at Chicago.
CHAPTER XVII
The Passenger Pigeon in Confinement
(Ectopistes migratorius)
From "The Auk," July, 1896.
I
IN theAmerican Fieldof December 5, 1895, I noticed a short note, stating that Mr. David Whittaker of Milwaukee, Wis., had in a spacious inclosure a flock of fifty genuine wild pigeons. Being much interested of late in this bird, I at once wrote to Mr. Whittaker, asking for such information in detail regarding his birds as he could give me, but, owing to absence from the city, he did not reply. Still being anxious to learn something further regarding this interesting subject, I recently wrote to a correspondent in Milwaukee, asking him to investigate the matter. In due time I received his reply, stating that he had seen the pigeons, but that the flock consisted of fifteen instead of fifty birds, and inviting me to join him and spend a few hours of rare pleasure.
On March 1, 1896, I visited Milwaukee, and made a careful inspection of this beautiful flock. I am greatly indebted to Mr. Whittaker, through whose courtesy we saw and heard so much of value and interest, not only in regard to his pet birds, but also abouthis large experience with the wild pigeon in its native haunts; for, being a keen observer of nature, and having been a prospector for many years among the timber and mining regions of Wisconsin, Michigan and Canada, his opportunities for observation have been extensive. In the fall of 1888 Mr. Whittaker received from a young Indian two pairs of pigeons, one of adults and the other quite young. They were trapped near Lake Shawano, in Shawano County in northeastern Wisconsin.
Shortly after being confined, one of the old birds scalped itself by flying against the wire netting, and died; the other one escaped. The young pair were, with much care and watching, successfully raised, and from these the flock has increased to its present number, six males and nine females. The inclosure, which is not large, is built behind and adjoining the house, situated on a high bluff overlooking Milwaukee River. It is built of wire netting and inclosed on the top and two sides with glass. There is but slight protection from the cold, and the pigeons thrive in zero weather as well as in summer. A few branches and poles are used for roosting, and two shelves, about one foot wide and partitioned off, though not inclosed, are where the nests are built and the young are raised. It was several years before Mr. Whittaker successfully raised the young, but, by patient experimenting with various kinds of food, he has been rewarded. The destruction of thenests and egg, at times by the female, more often by others of the flock, and the killing of the young birds, after they leave the nest, by the old males, explains in part the slow increase in the flock.
When the pigeons show signs of nesting, small twigs are thrown onto the bottom of the inclosure; and, on the day of our visit, I was so fortunate as to watch the operations of nest building. There were three pairs actively engaged. The females remained on the shelf, and, at a given signal which they only uttered for this purpose, the males would select a twig or straw, and in one instance a feather, and fly up to the nest, drop it and return to the ground while the females placed the building material in position and then called for more.
In all of Mr. Whittaker's experience with this flock he has never known of more than one egg being deposited. Audubon, in his article on the Passenger Pigeon, says: "A curious change of habits has taken place in England in those pigeons which I presented to the Earl of Kirby in 1830, that nobleman having assured me that, ever since they began breeding in his aviaries, they have laid only one egg." The eggs are usually laid from the middle of February to the middle of September, some females laying as many as seven or eight during the season, though three or four is the average.
The period of incubation is fourteen days, almost to a day, and, if the egg is not hatched in that time, thebirds desert it. As in the wild state, both parents assist in incubation, the females sitting all night, and the males by day. As soon as the young are hatched the parents are fed on earth worms, beetles, grubs, etc., which are placed in a box of earth, from which they greedily feed, afterwards nourishing the young, in the usual way, by disgorging the contents from the crop. At times the earth in the inclosure is moistened with water and a handful of worms thrown in, which soon find their way under the surface. The pigeons are so fond of these tid-bits they will often pick and scratch holes in their search, large enough to almost hide themselves.
When the birds are sitting during cold weather, the egg is tucked up under the feathers, as though to support the egg in its position. At such times the pigeon rests on the side of the folded wing, instead of squatting on the nest. During the first few days, after the young is hatched, to guard against the cold, it is, like the egg, concealed under the feathers of the abdomen, the head always pointing forward. In this attitude, the parents, without changing the sitting position or reclining on the side, feed the squab by arching the head and neck down, and administering the food. The young leave the nest in about fourteen days, and then feed on small seeds, and later, with the old birds, subsist on grains, beech nuts, acorns, etc.
The adults usually commence to molt in Septemberand are but a few weeks in assuming their new dress, but the young in the first molt are much longer. At the time of my visit the birds were all in perfect plumage. The young in the downy state are a dark slate-color.
The pigeons are always timid, and ever on the alert when being watched, and the observer must approach them cautiously to prevent a commotion. They inherit the instincts of their race in a number of ways. On the approach of a storm the old birds will arrange themselves side by side on the perch, draw the head and neck down into the feathers, and sit motionless for a time, then gradually resume an upright position, spread the tail, stretch each wing in turn, and then, as at a given signal, they spring from the perch and bring up against the wire netting with their feet as though anxious to fly before the disturbing elements. Mr. Whittaker has noticed this same trait while observing pigeons in the woods.
It was with a peculiar sense of pleasure and satisfaction that I witnessed and heard all the facts about this flock, inasmuch as but few of us expect to again have such opportunities with this pigeon in the wild state. It is to be hoped that, if Mr. Whittaker continues to successfully increase these birds, he will dispose of a pair to some zoölogical gardens; for what would be a more valuable and interesting addition than an aviary of this rapidly diminishing species?
LETTERS OF COMMENT FROM CHIEF POKAGON.
Hartford, Mich., Dec. 17, 1896.
Ruthven Deane, Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:—Your article on wild pigeons (O-me-me-oo) received and just read with much interest. I am now satisfied you are deeply interested in those strange birds, or you would not have gone to Milwaukee to see them. I would like to have Whittaker's full name and address so I can learn the come-out of that little flock. You note his flock stands zero weather. Many times in my life I have known O-me-me-oo, while nesting, to be obliged to search for food in from four to six inches of snow, and have seen the snow at such times upturned and intermixed with forest leaves for miles and miles. They would move out of the nesting grounds in vast columns, flying one over the other. I have seen them at such times reminding me of a vast flood of water rolling over a rocky bottom, sending the water in curved lines upwards and falling farther down the stream.
I have seen them many times building nests by the thousand within sight, both male and female assisting in building the nest. I have counted the number of sticks used many times; they number from seventy to one hundred and ten, sometimes so frail I have plainly seen the eggs from the ground.
I visited a nesting north of Kilburn City, Wis., abouttwenty-five years ago, and I there counted as high as forty nests in scrub oaks not over twenty-five feet high; in many places I could pick the eggs out of the nests, being not over five or six feet from the ground.
I stopped then with the Win-a-ba-go Indians, and was much interested in seeing them play mog-i-cin. I had heard the fathers explain the game when a boy, but never saw it before. I call it a gambling game. Certain it is, when nesting in a wild state, the male goes out at break of day; returning from eight to eleven he takes the nest; the hen then goes out, returning from one to four, and takes the nest; then the male goes out, returning, according to feed, between that time and night.
After the young leave their nests, I have always noticed that a few, both males and females, stay with them. I have seen as many as a dozen young ones assemble about a male, and, with drooping wings, utter the plaintive begging notes to be fed, and never saw them misused at such times by either gender. Certain it is, while feeding their young they are frantic for salt. I have seen them pile on top of each other, about salt springs, two or more deep. I wonder if your friend gives his birds, while brooding, salt.
Hartford, Mich., Dec. 18, 1896.
Dear Sir:—Yours of December 17th at hand. It is indeed surprising to me that your place of businessis so close to old Fort Dearborn. In writing you yesterday, I overlooked what you said about the Milwaukee man's experience with his birds just hatching. I understand they were young birds. Thirty-two years ago there was a big nesting between South Haven and St. Joseph on Lake Michigan. About one week after the main body commenced nesting, a new body of great size, covering hundreds of acres, came and joined them. I never saw nests built so thick, high and low. I found they were all young birds less than a year old, which could be easily explained from their mottled coloring. To my surprise, soon as nests were built, they commenced tearing them down—a few eggs scattered about told some had laid; within three days they all left, moving in a body up the lake shore north. I have had like facts told me by others who have witnessed the same thing; and therefore conclude that your friend's experience accurately portrays the habits of these birds in their wild state.
University of Chicago,
May 30, 1904.
Dear Sir:—I have ten of the wild pigeons; they are from a single pair obtained by Mr. Whittaker of Milwaukee about twenty years ago. Mr. W. bred from this pair until he had a dozen or more. I obtained a few pairs from him, and they bred fairly well for a few years, but lately have failed to accomplish anything.This season a single egg was obtained. It developed for about a week and then halted. The stock is evidently weakened by inbreeding so long. I can give no information as to time of disappearance. I have sought information far and near. Only a few birds have been reported the last three years. One was reported on pretty reliable grounds from Toronto last summer.
Sorry I can give you no satisfactory details.
Yours truly,
C. O. Whitman.
[Under date of June 6, 1905, Prof. Whitman of the University of Chicago wrote to me that his flock had been reduced from ten to four since he last wrote. He says that one pair were then beginning the maneuvers preceding nesting, but he doubted very much if they would accomplish anything.]
CHAPTER XVIII
Nesting Habits of the Passenger Pigeon
By Eugene Pericles (Dr. Morris Gibbs), from "The Oölogist, 1894."
T
THERE are hundreds and perhaps thousands of the younger readers ofThe Oölogistwho have never seen a Passenger Pigeon alive. In fact, there are many who have never seen a skin or stuffed specimen, for the species is so rare now that very few of the younger collectors have had an opportunity of shooting a bird. And of the present generation of oölogists, the ones who have secured a set (one egg) are indeed very few.
Many of the older ornithologists can remember when the birds appeared among us in myriads each season, and were mercilessly and inconsiderately trapped and shot whenever and wherever they appeared. I could fill a book with the accounts of their butcheries, and could easily cause astonishment in my readers by telling of the immense flocks which were seen a quarter of a century ago. But wonderful as these tales would appear, they would be as nothing compared to the stories of the earlier writers on birds in America.
. . . Of course we know that the net and gunhave been the principal means of destruction, but it is almost fair to assert that even with the net and gun under proper restrictions, the pigeon would still be with us in hordes, both spring and autumn. For many years hunters (butchers) used to shoot the birds regularly at their nesting places, while the netters were also found near at hand.
I have seen many birds taken, by unsportsmanlike netters, for the market during spring migrations, and the published accounts of the destruction by netters is almost beyond belief. Doctor Kirtland states that near Circleville, Ohio, in 1850, there were taken in a single net in one day 1,285 live pigeons.
The Passenger Pigeon was in the habit of crossing the Ohio River by March 1 in the spring migrations, and I have noted the birds several times in Michigan in February. But this was not usually the case, for the birds were not abundant generally before April 1, although no set rule could be laid down regarding their appearance or departure either in spring or fall. They usually came with a mighty rush. Sometimes they did not appear, or, at least, only very sparingly. Their nesting sites would remain the same for years if the birds were unmolested, but they generally had to change every year or two, or as soon as the roost was discovered by the despicable market netter.
Where the mighty numbers went to when they left for the south is not accurately stated, and, of course, thiswill now never be known, but they were found to continue in flocks in Virginia, Kentucky and even Tennessee.
. . . In the latter part of April or early May the birds began nesting. The nest building beginning as soon as the birds had selected a woods for a rookery, the scene was one of great activity. Birds were flying in every direction in search of twigs for their platform nests, and it did seem that each pair was intent on securing materials at a distance from the structure. Many twigs were dropped in flying, or at the nest, and these were never reclaimed by their bearers, but were often picked up by other birds from another part of the rookery. This peculiarity in so many species of birds in nest building I could never understand.
It takes a pair of pigeons from four to six days to complete a nest, and any basketmaker could do a hundred per cent. better job with the same materials in a couple of hours. In the nest of the pigeon, man could certainly give the birds points for their benefit, for it is one of the most shiftless structures placed in trees that I have met with.
The nest is always composed of slender dead twigs, so far as I have observed, or ever learned from others, and in comparison, though smaller, much resembles some of the heron's structures. In some nests I have observed the materials are so loosely put together that the egg or young bird can be seen through thelatticed bottom. In fact, it has been my custom to always thus examine the nests before climbing the tree.
The platform structures vary in diameter from six to twelve inches or more, differing in size according to the length of the sticks, but generally are about nine or ten inches across. An acquaintance of mine had tamed some wild birds, which at last bred regularly in captivity. These birds were well supplied with an abundance of material for their nests and always selected in confinement such as described above, and making a nest about nine inches in diameter.
The breeding places are generally found in oak woods, but the great nesting sites in Michigan were often in timbered lands, I am informed.
The height of the nest varies. It may be as low as six feet or all of sixty-five feet from the ground.
Passenger Pigeons are always gregarious when unmolested, and hundreds of thousands sometimes breed in a neighborhood at one time. It is impossible to say how many nests were the most found in one tree, but there are authenticated instances of a hundred. One man, on whose veracity I rely, informs me that he counted 110 nests in one tree in Emmett County, the lower peninsula. Still this may not be correct, for we all know how easy it is to be deceived in correctly counting and keeping record of even the branches of a tree, and when these limbs are occupied by nests it is certainlydoubly difficult, and the tendency to count the same nests twice is increased.
The first nests that I found were in large white oak trees at the edge of a pond. The date was May 17, 1873. The nests were few in number and only one nest in a tree. There was but a single egg in a nest; in fact this is all I have found at any time. The last nest that I have met with south of the forty-third parallel was forty feet up in a tamarack tree in a swamp near the river, June 1, 1884. This nest was alone and would not have been discovered had not the birds flown to it. I have found several instances of pairs of pigeons building isolated nests, and cannot help but think that if all birds had followed this custom that the pigeons would still be with us in vast numbers.
As late as May 9, 1880, my lamented friend, the late C. W. Gunn, found a rookery in a cedar woods in Cheboygan County. These nests contained a single egg each, and he secured about fifty fresh eggs. He did not think their number excessive, as the netters were killing the birds in every direction. But now we can look upon such a trip almost as devastation because the birds are so scarce.
In 1885 I met with the pigeon on Mackinac Island, and have found a few isolated flocks in the Lower Peninsula since then, generally in the fall, but it is safe to say that the birds will never again appear in one-thousandth part of the number of former years.
The places where the birds are nesting are interesting spots to visit. Both parents incubate and the scene is animated as the birds fly about in all directions. However, as the bulk of the birds must fly to quite a distance from an immense rookery to find food, it necessarily follows that the main flocks arrive and depart evening and morning. Then the crush is often terrific and the air is fairly alive with birds. The rush of their thousands of wings makes a mighty noise like the sound of a stiff breeze through the trees.
Often when the large flocks settle at the roost the birds crowd so closely on the slender limbs that they bend down and sometimes crack, and the sound of the dead branches falling from their weight adds an additional likeness to a storm. Sometimes the returning birds will settle on a limb which holds nests and then many eggs are dashed to the ground, and beneath the trees of a rookery one may always find a lot of smashed eggs.
Later in the season young birds may be seen perched all over the trees or on the ground, while big squabs with pin-feathers on are seen in, or rather on, the frail nests, or lying dead or injured on the ground. The frightful destruction that is sure to accompany the nesting of a rookery of Passenger Pigeons is bound to attract the observer's eye. And we cannot but understand how it is that these unprolific birds with many natural enemies, in addition to that unnatural enemy, man, fail toincrease. If the pigeon deposited ten to twenty eggs like the quail the unequal battle of equal survival might be kept up. But even this is to be doubted if the bird continues to nest in colonies.
Many ornithological writers have written that the wild pigeon lays two eggs as a rule, but these men were evidently not accurate observers, and probably took their records at second-hand. There is no doubt that two eggs are quite often found in a nest, and sometimes these eggs are both fresh, or else equally advanced in incubation. But these instances, I think, are evidences alone that two females have deposited in the same nest, a supposition which is not improbable with the gregarious species.
That the wild pigeon may rear two or three young in a season, I do not doubt, and an old trapper and observer has offered this theory to explain the condition where there are found both egg and young in the same nest, or squabs of widely varied ages. He asserts that when an egg is about ready to hatch, a second egg was deposited in the nest, and that the squab assisted in incubating the egg when the old birds were both away for food, and that in time a third and last egg was laid, so that three young were hatched each season, if the birds are unmolested.
This peculiarity may exist with the pigeon, but I can add nothing to further it from my own observations, except to record the finding of an egg in the nest witha half-grown bird—the only instance in my experience. From watching the ways of some captive birds kept as stool-pigeons, I am well satisfied that two young are not rarely hatched at some weeks apart, and they do fairly well in confinement.
The young are fed by a process known as regurgitation, the partially digested contents of the birds' crops being ejected into the mouths of the squabs.
The position of the nest varies greatly. Often the nests are well out on slender branches and in dangerous positions, considering the shiftlessness of the structure. When a rookery is visited, nests may be found in all manner of situation. I have found single nests built on small twigs next the body of an oak tree, and at a height of only ten feet, and again have seen nests forty feet up in thick tamaracks.
The eggs do not vary much in size or color. They are white, but without the polish seen on the egg of the domestic pigeon. About one and one-half by one inch is the regulation size.
By reference to old price lists of nearly a quarter of a century ago I find that the eggs were then listed at twenty-five cents, while it would be difficult to secure good specimens at present at six times the figure.
CHAPTER XIX
Miscellaneous Notes
T
THE earliest mention of the wild pigeon I have been able to find is the following, taken fromForest and Stream, to which it was contributed by F. C. Browne, Framingham, Mass. It is from an old print entitled, "Two Voyages to New England, Made During the Years 1638-63," by John Josselyn, Gent. Published in 1674. I am not so fortunate as to possess an original copy. This extract is from the Boston reprint of 1865, and is from the "Second Voyage" (1663), which has a full account of the wild beasts, birds and fishes of the new settlement:
"The Pidgeons, of which there are millions of millions. I have seen a flight of Pidgeons in the Spring, and at Michaelmas when they return back to the South-ward, for four or five miles, that to my thinking had neither beginning nor ending, length nor breadth, and so thick that I could see no Sun. They join Nest to Nest and Tree to Tree by their Nests many miles together in Pine-Trees. I have bought at Boston a dozen Pidgeons ready pulled and garbidged for three pence. But of late they are much diminished, the English taking them with Nets."
It will be noted that the wild pigeons began to be "much diminished" even at that early date.
The following extract is from the journal of the voyage of Father Gravier in the year 1700:
"Through the Country of the Illinois to the Mouth of the Mississippi."
Under date of October 7th he says:
"Below the mouth of the Ouabache (meaning the Wabash River), we saw such a great quantity of wild pigeons that the air was darkened and quite covered by them."
The journal of Alexander Henry, the younger, written in August, 1800, states that large numbers of wild pigeons were seen and used for food by his party. This was at a point on the Red River not far north of what is now Grand Forks, N. D.
The Passenger Pigeon found a place in a book called "Quebec and Its Environments; Being a Picturesque Guide to the Stranger." Printed by Thomas Cary & Co., Freemasons' Hall, Buade Street, 1831. A rare copy was found in the library of the late Charles Dean, having been purchased by him while visiting Quebec in 1841. It is now in the possession of Ruthven Deane of Chicago. I quote from this old guide-book as follows:
PIGEON NETTaken from an old etching
PIGEON NET
Taken from an old etching
"At one period of the year numerous and immense flights of pigeons visit Canada, when the population make a furious war against them both by guns and nets; they supply the inhabitants with a material part of their subsistence, and are sold in the market at Quebec remarkably cheap, often as low as a shilling per dozen, and sometimes even at a less rate. It appears that the pigeon prefers the loftiest and most leafless tree to settle on. In addition to the natural beauty of St. Ann and its environs, the process by which the inhabitants take the pigeons is worth remarking. Upon the loftiest tree, long bare poles are slantingly fixed; small pieces of wood are placed transversely across this pole, upon which the birds crowd; below, in ambush, the sportsman with a long gun enfilades the whole length of the pole, and, when he fires, few if any escape. Innumerable poles are prepared at St. Ann for this purpose. The other method they have of taking them is by nets, by which means they are enabled to preserve them alive, and kill them occasionally for their own use or for the market, when it has ceased to be glutted with them. Behind Madam Fontane's this sport may be seen in perfection. The nets, which are very large, are placed at the end of an avenue of trees (for it appears the pigeons choose an avenue to fly down); opposite a large tree, upon erect poles two nets are suspended, one facing the avenue, the other the tree; another is placed over them, which is fixed at one end, and supported by pulleys and two perpendicular poles at the opposite; a man is hid in a small covered house under the tree, with a rope leading from the pulleys in his hand. Directly thepigeons fly against the perpendicular nets, he pulls the rope, when the top net immediately falls and incloses the whole flock; by this process vast numbers are taken."
"Tanner's Narrative," a story (authentic) of thirty years among the Indians, published in 1830, refers frequently to great numbers of pigeons, and gives their range from the Kentucky, Big Miami and Ohio Rivers to Lake Winnipeg, or "The Lake of Dirty Waters."
Mr. Osborn further adds: "Tanner was a United States Indian interpreter at the Soo."
William Glazier made a trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi River in 1881 and wrote a book entitled "Down the Mississippi River." In three different places in this book he mentions seeing wild pigeons. In one place he says that a small flock of pigeons dropped down in the tops of some tall pines near him.
In Hayden's Survey Report, Interior Department, as given in Coues' "Birds of the Northwest," 1874, it is mentioned that wild pigeons were found on the Pacific coast, and Cooper reports them in the Rocky Mountains. [High authority, but it must have referred to the band-tailed pigeon.—W. B. M.]
From the foregoing chapters I have summarized the latest reports of the presence of the wild pigeon in its former haunts. These instances have been reported as follows:
N. W. Judy & Co., St. Louis, Mo., the largest dealers in poultry and game in that section, said, in 1895, they had had no wild pigeons for two years; the last they received were from Siloam Springs, Ark. This would mean that they were on the market during the season of 1893. Until 1890 frequent reports were recorded of pigeons seen singly, in pairs and in small flocks.
In 1891 Mr. F. M. Woodruff, Assistant Curator of the Chicago Academy of Sciences, secured a pair at Lake Forest, Ill.
A nest with two eggs and two birds were collected by C. B. Brown of Chicago in the spring of 1893 at English Lake, Ind.
In September, 1893, three were reported in Lake County, Ill.
In April of the same year, a male pigeon was reported as having been seen in Lincoln Park, Ill.
Mr. R. W. Stafford of Chicago, Ill., reported seeing a flock in the latter part of September, 1894, at Marengo, Ill.
Mr. John L. Stockton, Highland Park, Ill., reported that while trout fishing on the Little Oconto River, Wis., early in June, 1895, he saw a flock of ten pigeons for several consecutive days near his camp.
A young female was killed at Lake Forest, Ill., in August, 1895.
In October, 1895, Dr. Ernest Copeland of Milwaukee killed one in Delta, Northern Peninsula, Mich.
On December 17, 1896, C. N. Holden, Jr., while hunting quail in Oregon County, Mo., observed a flock of about fifty birds.
Chief Pokagon reports there was a small nesting of pigeons near the head waters of the Au Sable River in Michigan, during the spring of 1896.
A. Fugleburg of Oshkosh, Wis., reports that on the morning of August 14, 1897, he saw a flock of pigeons flying over Lake Winnebago from Fisherman's Island to Stony Brook. This flock was followed by six more flocks containing from thirty-five to eighty pigeons each. The same observer reports that on September 2, 1897, a friend of his reported having seen a flock of about twenty-five near Lake Butte des Mortes, Wis.
W. F. Rightmire reports that while driving along the highway north of Cook, Johnson County, Neb., August 18, 1897, he saw a flock of seventy-five to one hundred birds; some feeding on the ground, others perched in the trees.
A. B. Covert of Ann Arbor, President at one time of the Michigan Ornithological Club, reports seeing stray birds during 1892 and 1894, and states also that on October 1, 1898, he saw a flock of 200 and watched them nearly all day.
T. E. Douglas of Grayling reports seeing a flock of ten near West Branch, Mich., in 1895, and in 1900 he saw three on one of the branches of the Au Sable River in Michigan.
In 1897 C. S. Osborn of Sault Ste Marie reported having seen a single wild bird flying with the tame pigeons around the town.
In 1897 or 1898 C. E. Jennison of Bay City saw six or seven at Thunder Bay Island near Alpena, Mich.
In 1900 Neal Brown of Wausau, Wis., killed one near Babcock, Wis., in September.
George King of Otsego County, Mich., in 1900 saw a flock of one dozen or more birds on the Black River, and he says he heard two "holler" in 1902, but was unable to find them. In May, 1905, he is certain he saw six near Vanderbilt, Mich.
John Burroughs reports that a friend of his, Charles W. Benton, saw a large flock of wild pigeons near Prattsville, Greene County, N. Y., in April, 1906.
EARLY LEGISLATION TO SAVE THE PIGEON
Wild pigeons were used largely by trap-shooters for tournaments. In 1881, 20,000 of them were killed in one of these trap-shooting butcheries on Coney Island, N. Y. The following editorial protest against this outrage appeared inForest and Stream, July 14, 1881:
Mr. Bergh's Anti-Pigeon Bill.—Just as we go to press we learn that the Senate has passed the bill prepared by Mr. Henry Bergh prohibiting the trap-shooting of pigeons. The bill awaits Governor Cornell's signature before becoming a law. Its provisions are:
Section 1.Any person who shall keep or use any live pigeon, fowl, or other bird or animal for the purpose of a target or to be shot at either for amusement or as a test of skill in marksmanship, and any person who shall shoot at any pigeon, fowl, or other bird or animal, as aforesaid, or be a party to any such shooting of any pigeon, fowl or other bird or animal; and any person who shall rent any building, shed, room, yard, field, or other premises, or shall suffer or permit the use of any building, shed, room, yard, field, or other premises for the purpose of shooting any pigeon, fowl, or other bird or animal, as aforesaid, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor.
Section 2.Nothing herein contained shall apply to the shooting of any wild game in its wild state.
The bill is a direct and not wholly unexpected result of the Coney Island pigeon-killing tournament of the New York State Association for the Protection of Fish and Game. Had the sport of pigeon shooting been confined to individual clubs of gentlemen testing their skill at the traps, it is doubtful if the matter ever would have received, as it would not have merited, public attention. But when a society, which organized ostensibly for theprotection of game, treats the public to such a spectacle as that at Coney Island, neglects the matter with which it should be concerned and devotes 20,000 pigeons brought from their nesting ground to its wholesale slaughter, its members can hardly look for any other public sentiment than exactly that feeling which has been aroused. An afternoon's shoot at a few pigeons, and a ten days' shoot at unlimited numbers of helpless birds—many of them squabs, unable to fly, and others too exhausted to do so—are regarded by the public as two very different things.
Transcriber's NoteObvious punctuation and spelling errors were corrected.One 'signature' of Ruthven Deane was modified from the printed version to match the others.Where quotations began and were not closed, a closing quotation mark was placed at the end of that paragraph:p. 155"There are no wild pigeons in Iosco County…p. 171"In three years' time…Transcription of circular shown facingpage 92for screen readers:AMONG THE PIGEONS.A Reply to Professor Roney's Account ofthe Michigan Nestings of 1878.—BY—E. T. MARTIN,In theChicago Field, Jan. 25, 1879.Illustration: building and pigeonsE. T. Martin's Headquarters at Boyne Falls, Michigan, during the Nesting of 1878.
Transcriber's Note
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors were corrected.
One 'signature' of Ruthven Deane was modified from the printed version to match the others.
Where quotations began and were not closed, a closing quotation mark was placed at the end of that paragraph:
p. 155"There are no wild pigeons in Iosco County…p. 171"In three years' time…
Transcription of circular shown facingpage 92for screen readers:
AMONG THE PIGEONS.A Reply to Professor Roney's Account ofthe Michigan Nestings of 1878.—BY—E. T. MARTIN,In theChicago Field, Jan. 25, 1879.Illustration: building and pigeonsE. T. Martin's Headquarters at Boyne Falls, Michigan, during the Nesting of 1878.