32 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Please report all pigeons seen, giving 

 exactly date, hour, number in flock, di- 

 rection of flight. Unless absolutely 

 certain that von know the Band-tailed, 

 Viosca and Red-billed pigeons, do not 

 report that you have seen the passen- 

 ger pigeon in the Rocky Mts. or Pacific 

 Coast region, from British Columbia to 

 Mexico. 



As soon as a pigeon nesting is sure- 

 ly identified write the undersigned, who 

 will arrange for confirming party and 

 for payment of reward. All rewards 

 not claimed by Oct. 31, 191 1, will be 

 withdrawn. 



Signed, C. F. HODGE, 

 Clark University, Worcester, Mass. 



For descriptive leaflet with colored 

 pictures of the pigeons and mourning 

 dove, enclose 6 cents, stamps, to Chas. 

 K. Reed, Worcester, Mass. 



Note — You are millions to one, al- 

 ready busy man. Please do not •write 

 Dr. Hodge for INFORMATION. $100 

 pays the postage on only 5,000 letters. 



Professor Clifton F. Hodge w r rites to 

 The Guide to Nature, date of April 

 23, as follows : 



"Professor Whitman's pigeons, pas- 

 sengers, are all dead. The lone speci- 

 men in the Cincinnati Zoo is the only 

 one I know of alive in the world. Have 

 had good reports, however, of flocks 

 seen this spring — from South Carolina, 

 Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and 

 last August as a man eighty-three 

 years old writes me, a family had pas- 

 senger pigeon potpie from a flock of 

 from 'eight hundred to one thousand 

 birds' which nested in Michigan. 



"May get a report of nesting any day 

 now." 



It is sincerely to be hoped that these 

 reports will not prove to be false as 

 did many seemingly equally good last 

 year. 



* -',■■ * :|: * * 



One of our A A members, Mr. John 

 E. Mellish, Cottage Grove, Wisconsin, 

 writes under date of April 19, 191 1, as 

 follows : 



'There was a heavy shower about 

 10 a. m. the thirteenth of April. I went 

 out under an apple tree near the house 

 and just then a large bird came and lit 



about eight feet above my head. I 

 made tracks for the house and got a 

 three inch telescope out and we looked 

 at the bird with a power of fifty diame- 

 ters, from a distance of sixty feet and 

 found it to be a passenger pigeon. 

 There were some white tail feathers 

 under the others and about two-thirds 

 or three-quarters the length of the tail. 

 These feathers only showed when he 

 flew or spread the tail. There were six 

 black spots on each wing about two 

 times the diameter of his eye and oval 

 shaped. The upper end of the spots 

 were covered by some lint of the same 

 feather so we could not see it all. The 

 general color of the upper parts was a 

 sort of ash. The breast was a rusty 

 brown with a pinkish tinge. The lower 

 ends of the wing feathers were edged 

 with white. There was not a single 

 speck of dark under the ear or on the 

 side of the head in any place. We 

 watched it for over an hour ; it then 

 w r ent north. I wrote to an expert and 

 he wrote that there was no doubt about 

 . its being the passenger pigeon." 



The Value of Science. 



One can hardly form too sanguine 

 estimate of the possibilities of benefits 

 to be derived by our generation and those 

 who come after us from the systematic 

 endowment of scientific research. At the 

 present day probably no thoughtful man 

 is disposed to question the value of sci- 

 ence to the community, so long as merely 

 general principles are mentioned. It is 

 only when some specific problem is re- 

 ferred to that we often hear the impa- 

 tient question, "What is the use of such 

 work?" The man who asks such a ques- 

 tion is usually forgetful of the fact that 

 he has in his own mind admitted the 

 truth of the general principle of utility 

 and is merely unable in this particular 

 instance to follow out for himself the 

 complicated network of threads by which 

 some one particular problem is linked 

 with the infinity of natural phenomena, 

 the proper understanding of which is so 

 essential for our mastery over nature, 

 and for our very life. — "Scientific Amer- 

 ican." 



