246 MICHIGAN BIRD LIFE. 



for trap shooting. Dr. Voorheis states that at one time he had so many- 

 pigeons alive in crates that it took seven bushels of corn per day to feed 

 them. This was the last nesting in that part of the state, so far as Dr. 

 Voorheis knows, and it was broken up by a heavy fall of snow, at least eight 

 inches, after most of the nests had eggs. All the old birds left in a body 

 and never came back. 



In several other cases large nestings are said to have been broken up by 

 heavy falls of snow, and in still others the entire hosts of pigeons abandoned 

 the nesting grounds apparently as the result of the persecution to which 

 they were subjected. During the years 1874 and 1876 there were immense 

 nestings near Shelby, Oceana county, and, perhaps owing to the favorable 

 location of the birds, larger numbers were shipped from these roosts than 

 from any other recent roosts of which we have data. One dealer alone 

 claims to have shipped 175,000 pigeons from the Shelby nesting during 

 a single season, and states that in that year (1874) the shipments of birds 

 from the Shelby nestings averaged about 100 barrels per day for more than 

 thirty days. 



The disappearance of the Passenger Pigeon furnishes one of the most 

 remarkable and interesting problems of which we have any record, both 

 because of its suddenness and completeness. Up to about 1870 the bird 

 was considered a veritable pest by the farmers of the state, and the only 

 good obtained from it was the supply of food which it furnished from year 

 to year. Up to that time no attempt to protect it by legislation had been 

 made, and probably no one would have countenanced such an attempt. 

 Even as late as 1878 Pigeons were extraordinarily abundant in all the upper 

 counties of the Lower Peninsula, and according to several authorities not 

 only did millions nest near Petoskey, Emmet county, that summer, but 

 a nesting about half as large was located near Boyne Falls, Charlevoix 

 county, and another "farther south, on the Manistee River, some 26 miles 

 long by 5 average width, or 130 square miles, in which the birds hatched 

 three times, and from which not a bird was caught, as it was an impene- 

 trable swamp" (Quoted by Mershon, 1907, p. 94). 



For some time previous to this the Michigan game law included the 

 Pigeon among the game birds, and certain sections nominally protected 

 the birds while nesting, prohibiting the use of nets within certain distances 

 of nesting grounds and also prohibiting the shooting of pigeons ^^ithin several 

 miles. These sections, however, were seldom if ever enforced, owing to 

 the difficulty of getting sufficient evidence to convict, as well as to the 

 attitude of residents in the neighborhood, who were all interested in the 

 business furnished by the Pigeons and unwilling to enforce a statute which 

 was objectionable. Each nesting was bes'eged by an army of professional 

 pigeoners, the total number of professionals often reaching 500 or even 800, 

 while residents of the vicinity, and other amateurs, increased the number 

 to a thousand or more. The business of pigeon catching was sometimes 

 a very lucrative one, and even under unfavorable circumstances the local 

 farmers and business men looked upon it as a boon which should be utilized 

 to the full. 



In 1897 the legislature enacted a law prohibiting the killing of the 

 Passenger Pigeon at any time of year, for a period of ten years, and in 

 1905 the Passenger Pigeon was removed from the class of game birds to 

 that of non-game birds, so that its killing at the present time is illegal at 

 any season. The prohibition, however, appears to have come too late. 



