68 The Passenger Pigeon 



a nest on which he distinctly saw a bird sitting. The 

 following day I accompanied him to this nest, which 

 was at least 50 feet above the ground, on the horizontal 

 branch of a large hemlock, about 20 feet out from the 

 trunk. As we approached the spot an adult male 

 pigeon started from a tree near that on which the nest 

 was placed, and a moment later a young bird, with 

 stub tail and barely able to fly, fluttered feebly after 

 it. This young pigeon was probably the bird seen the 

 previous day on the nest, for on climbing to the latter, 

 Mr. Dwight found it empty, but fouled with excrement, 

 some of which was perfectly fresh. A thorough inves- 

 tigation of the surrounding woods, which were a hun- 

 dred acres or more in extent, and composed chiefly of 

 beeches, with a mixture of white pines and hemlocks 

 of the largest size, convinced us that no other pigeons 

 were nesting in them. 



"All the netters with whom we talked believe firmly 

 that there are just as many pigeons in the West as there 

 ever were. They say the birds have been driven from 

 Michigan and the adjoining States, partly by persecu- 

 tion, and partly by the destruction of the forests, and 

 have retreated to uninhabited regions, perhaps north 

 of the Great Lakes in British North America. Doubt- 

 less there is some truth in this theory; for, that the 

 pigeon is not, as has been asserted so often recently, 

 on the verge of extinction, is shown by the flight which 

 passed through Michigan in the Spring of 1888. This 



