258 



STATE AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BULLETINS. 



Order COLUMB.^i Pigeons. 



Family COLUMBID^. Pigeons and Doves. 

 These birds are granivorous, as well as insectivorous. 



Genus ECTOPISTES Swain. 





Wild Pigeon, reduced. 



141 ol.">-(5-t;{). Ectopistes migratoriiis (Linn.). * Wild Pigeon; Passengek 



Pl(iEON. 



Once very common, now equally rare; as a boy I saw immense tlocks in Shia- 

 wassee Co., so large as to nearly cloud the sky; we used to catch them by use of a 

 net, hundreds at a time; " my father tells me that they were once so common 

 here, Port Sanilac, that they were killed by poles and carried home in wheel 

 barrows, they would darken the sun for hours as they flew over. Now very 

 rare. I killed one in 1889 and saw one in 1890'' (VV. A. Oldfield); "became extinct 

 at Ann Arbor about 1875" (Dr. J. B. Steere); "I have seen flocks of from 30 to 80 

 in Kent Co." (S. E. White); "became extinct in Monroe Co. in 1885" (Jerome 

 Trombley); -'last seen at Morrice in 1881, when I shot 52" (Dr. W. C. Brownell); 

 "last seen at Albion in 18S.5, when one was taken by L. J. Griffin" (O. B. Warren); 

 reported from Benzie and Presque Isle Counties; "Mackinac Island" (Dr. M. 

 Gibbs); "large flocks occasionally seen on Mackinac Island" (S. E. White); "seen 

 at Keweenaw Point as early as May 4" (Kneeland); March to Oct., sometimes 

 taken in winter; formerly bred in all parts of the state, abundantly north; large 

 breeding roosts formerly at Shelby, Mich. (Forest and Stream, Vol. XIV, pp. 231, 

 232); Mr. C J. Foreman tells me that they nested in Emmet Co. about 1878 in 

 exceeding numbers, when the nests covered many acres, and as they left their 

 nests, they would darken the sun, as by a cloud; nest and eggs similar 

 to those of the next species, except that this one nests in colonies and 



