40 The Ottawa Naturalist. [May 



RECOLLECTIONS OF THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



Beingf remarks made by the Rev. Dr. C. J. S. Bethune, and the resulting 

 discussion at the February meeting of the Ornithological Section of 

 the Entomological Society of Canada. 



In my student days, while attending- the University in Toronto, 



I started a Naturalists' Calendar, in which I recorded not only 



entomolog-ical items but also notes of prominent occurrences 



amongf the birds, such as first arrivals of song- sparrow, robin, etc. 



On turning up these notes I find two records onlv of the wild 



pigeon, one in the last week of March, 1858, and the other the 



8th March, i860; both of these notes were made in Toronto, and 



they refer to the large quantities of pigeons which were then seen. 



I remember most distinctly the occurrence in 1858, as I had been 



detained in Toronto during- one week of the Easter holidays for a 



special examination, and at that time flock after flock of pigeons 



crossed from the south at Toronto. All of the flocks were fairly 



long, from east to west, and some of them reached farther each 



way than one could see, but all were of short dimensions from 



north to south. I could not, of course, give the exact depth of 



these flocks, but it would be something like 100 yards or less. In 



the distance the birds looked like a black cloud, and as there were 



no trees in front of my room, and but few buildings between it and 



the lake, I had a very good chance to observe them. The position 



of my window was so commanding that on a clear day I could 



discern Brock's Monument, and sometimes on a dull day the spray 



of Niagara Falls could be seen. Years before, as a child, when 



living at Cobourg, these birds were seen in immense numbers. 



In early summer, probably June or late in May, as the trees were 



in leaf, enormous flocks would come over the lake going north, 



and the people who were so inclined would then turn out with 



shotguns, and an incessant firing ensued. As those in the streets 



of the town fired up into the air, the shot would fall back on the 



heads of those standing by, and the rattling of the shot as it fell 



on the shingles of the houses was almost constant. The term 



"pigeon-shot" was applied to the size used, in the same way as 



we now speak of duck-shot. Back of Cobourg lay a range of hills 



perhaps a couple of miles from the lake, and when the flight was 



