No. 20.] THE BIRDS OF CONNECTICUT. Jl 



is about a mile wide, and many flocks would easily span this 

 distance by one-half or three-quarters of a mile wide. The total 

 number of pigeons in this flight was something wonderful and 

 astounding. I shall never forget it. The flight lasted two days. 

 You ask how many pigeons were in the flight? Seventy-five to 

 one hundred thousand. And how many were killed? Remem- 

 ber the shooting was going on on both sides of the river; say 

 sixty shooters averaged forty or fifty pigeons per man, 2500 per 

 day. Two days, 5000. This is a conservative estimate. Every- 

 body had pigeon pot-pie. As to ammunition, the boys always tell 

 that on the two days the only available shot to be had was buck 

 shot. Ammunition dealers were cleaned out. The crops of the 

 pigeons were filled with acorns. Mr. Chappell and I have gone 

 over the event carefully." 



One morning early in the fall during the seventies, possibly 

 at the same date recorded by Mr. Hill, L. B. B. visited Guilford 

 and found the Green strewn with feathers of these birds that 

 had been shot during a flight on the previous day. 



On May 6, 1897, a dove was flushed by L. B. B. from the 

 borders of a small swamp on the outskirts of New Haven, and 

 to his surprise two eggs were seen lying on a few leaves on the 

 ground in an open space about one foot wide, in a narrow line 

 of alders, that stretched between a small clearing and the swamp. 

 The eggs impressed him as unusually large, and the Mourning 

 Dove is not known to nest on the ground in Connecticut. A 

 few minutes later the bird was again flushed from the nest, and, 

 after flying some distance, showing an unusually white tail, 

 wide spread, as it flew, returned and settled in a tree about thirty 

 yards away. There it was watched for some time through 

 powerful opera-glasses; but the light was not very good and 

 the position in which the bird sat not favorable for study. It 

 was evidently either a Passenger Pigeon or a Mourning Dove, 

 and appeared to be somewhat larger than the latter, and had 

 distinct dark markings near the tips of the outer greater primary 

 coverts. These markings seem to be usually present in females 

 of E. migratorius and not in females of Zenaidura macroura 

 carolinensis. The bird would not allow a nearer approach; and, 

 as the Passenger Pigeon was practically extinct in Connecticut, 

 and had never been known to breed on the ground, L. B. B. de- 



