Older COLUMB^. 



Family COLUMBID^E. 



ECTOPISTES MIGRATORIIS (L.) (315). 



PASSENGER PIGEON. 



Wild pigeons have been seen in the vicinit}'' of Lanesboro, 

 Fillmore county, and Spirit 1 ake, Jackson county, the southern 

 line of the State, as early as the 27th of March, but this is 

 earlier than the average arrival in even those lower counties. 

 A review of 20 years gives about the 5th of April, as nearer 

 that time. And their first appearance has never been in such 

 vast flocks as have characterized their spring migrations in 

 Illinois and Indiana in the first years of their settlement by 

 the whites. Still there have been occasional years when con- 

 siderable flocks have located and nested in somewhat restricted 

 localities throughout the state. I well remember one when a 

 large flock roosted for some time in an extensive popular grove 

 but a few miles out of the city of St. Paul. It subsequently 

 became distributed over a very wide extent of eastern Minne- 

 sota, and the western part of Wisconsin adjacent. The country 

 generally throughout this district is to a great extent charac- 

 terized by such groves of poplar, red and black oak brush - 

 lands. In these, on limbs generally not more than seven feet 

 from the ground, they constructed their nests about the first 

 of May. 



These were very frail structures and placed on a limb where 

 there was a horizontal branch. They consisted of a few long 

 sticks scarcely as large as a clay-pipe stem, on which were 

 distributed a scanty supply of twigs, or still smaller sticks, 

 with a few leaves overlaying the whole. Some nests had no 

 leaves at all. when the egg could be easily seen from underneath 

 it. In all of my examinations of them I seldom found more 

 than one egg in a nest. It was pure white, nearly oval. 



Their food consisted essentially of acorns in the spring, 

 but a heavy tax was levied on the wheat and oats in late sum- 

 mer and fall. Of late years but few are seen in any of the dis- 



