PASSENGER PIGEON INVESTIGATION 



ByC. F. HODGE, Clark University, Worchester, Mass., Aug. 15, 1910 



None of the awards have been won as yet. In all I must 

 have received nearly ioo reports of pigeon nestings. These have 

 been bona fide reports of people who have thought that they had 

 the real wild, or passenger, pigeon and have nothing to do with 

 the several thousands of letters of inquiry. On receipt of a 

 report, I mail the leaflet practically asking my informant if he 

 is "$5.00 sure?" Generally I get the reply: "I beg your pardon, 

 my birds, I find, are mourning doves". A number of very insist- 

 ent reports have come from the Far West and some have been 

 sent in from Brazil, Chili and Argentina. All the Pacific coast 

 findings have proved to be band-tailed pigeons or other Pacific 

 species. The work of this season, I think, definitely settles all the 

 newspaper stories about the passenger pigeon having been driven 

 west and to the effect that it is now living in large numbers in the 

 mountains or on various Pacific islands. Professor Whitman, 

 whose co-operation has been of incalculable value to me from 

 the beginning, writes that he has had the best collectors in South 

 America working for him and that "There is not a scrap of evi- 

 dence so far for the occurrence of our pigeon in South America". 



This narrows the problem down to eastern North America, 

 the known range of the species. Here Ontario has been the storm 

 center, with New York State a close second throughout the sea- 

 son. A good deal of evidence of pigeons seen in Pennsylvania 

 during the season has also been received. After some of the 

 Ontario reports, possibly the most encouraging report from any- 

 where in the United States comes from Pennsylvania. My in- 

 formant claims to have located two flocks of pigeons in the heavy 

 timber and that he found two nests in the same tree. He did 

 not know of the rewards at the time. After casually telling of his 

 find he learned of the rewards and, on revisiting the place, found 

 the nests deserted. I have written him requesting that he send 

 me the nests, but my letter has been returned unopened, and I am 

 now trying to reach him at another address. There are two (one 

 just owned up to mourning doves) similar cases in Ontario now 

 being followed up by local ornithologists. 



The season's experiences form a sickeningly funny commen- 

 tary of our education and our general knowledge of American 

 natural history. 



I have had a report of a nest from the heart of Boston, and 

 of one from a man at "Bloom & Co., Clothiers", cor. 67th St. 



