380 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



C. O. Whitman of Chicago. These birds, the descendants of a single 

 pair, had long before that ceased to breed.'' The last of this group, 

 a female in the Cincinnati Zoo, died of old age in September, 1914. 



The last records of wild birds that are based on specimens about 

 which there is no doubt appear all to have been taken in 1898 — one. 

 an adult male taken at Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba, on April 14 

 (Fleming, 1903 and 1907) ; an immature male at Owensboro, Ky., 

 on July 27, 1898 (Fleming, 1907), now in the Smithsonian Insti- 

 tution; and an immature bird taken at Detroit, Mich., on September 

 14, 1898 (Fleming, 1903 and 1907). Fleming (1907) adds in a foot- 

 note : " There is a mature female in the collection of the Carnegie 

 Institution of Pittsburg, Pa., marked ' Pennsylvania, August 15. 

 1898,' but without further locality." Still another specimen, the 

 fifth for 1898, was a young male shot by Addison P. Wilbur at 

 Canandaigua, N. Y., on September 14, 1898, and is recorded by E. H. 

 Eaton (1910), who states that he saw it killed, and that it "was 

 unquestionably reared in the spring of 1898, as it was just assuming 

 the adult plumage." 



L. E. Wyman (1921). of the Museum of History, Science, and Art, 

 Los Angeles, Calif., records the following : "A mounted specimen of 

 passenger pigeon acquired b} r the late F. S. Daggett, in January, 

 1920, and now in the Daggett collection, deposited in this museum, 

 bears the following label : ' Passenger Pigeon, male, No. 315, Coll. of 

 Geo. S. Hamlin. Shot by a Swede, North Bridgeport, Fairfield Co., 

 Conn., Aug., 1906.' " This seems conclusive, but under date of Sep- 

 tember 19, 1930, Mr. Fleming writes me, " I suggest that August, 

 1906, is the date the bird was acquired by Hamlin and who then 

 wrote the label." Mr. Fleming calls attention to the fact that in " The 

 Birds of Connecticut," by Sage, Bishop, and Bliss (1913), the last 

 authentic specimen for the State is recorded for October 1, 1889, and, 

 what is very significant, in notes communicated by Hamlin there is 

 no mention of a specimen taken later than 1892. 



A specimen in the Cornell University Museum, recorded by S. C. 

 Bishop and A. H. Wright (1917), was shot at Clyde, N. Y., by J. L. 

 Howard, who, when more than 80 years of age in 1915, stated from 

 memory that it was taken about 6 years previous, that is, in 1909. 

 This date is rendered extremely doubtful from the fact that on the 

 bottom of the mount is the date July 5, 1898, although this may have 

 been the record of another bird on the same mount. Mr. Howard 

 gives a circumstantial account of his shooting the bird, and states he 

 had not seen any passenger pigeons before this for about 1 5 years. 



It is true that since this time there have been many sight records 

 of the bird reported, some of which, at least some of the earlier ones, 

 are doubtless authentic, and at the present day there seems to be a 



