The Pigeon in Manitoba 189 



yond the possibility of a return in any numbers. When 

 a few years later reports are made that pigeons still 

 exist and are again increasing, scientific investigation 

 shows that the mourning dove has been mistaken for 

 the pigeon or that the band-tailed pigeon of California 

 is taken for the old Passenger Pigeon, and so we have 

 continued since the early nineties investigating rumors 

 of their appearance from all over America, north and 

 south, and the West India Islands, but all reports point 

 us to the past for the pigeon and some other species 

 under suspicion. ... I doubt very much if the 

 historian desirous of compiling any historical work 

 would find himself confronted with such a decided blank 

 in historical records during an important period as that 

 confronted in the compilation of a historical record of 

 the Passenger Pigeon within any district which it for- 

 merly frequented during the period from about 1870, 

 when the decline was first noticed, to 1890, when the 

 birds had practically passed away. 



In this matter, Mr. J. H. Fleming of Toronto, in 

 writing me, says: "The pigeons seem to have gone off 

 like dynamite. Nobody expected it and nobody pre- 

 pared a series of skins" ; and to this I can add that no 

 one seems to have made any series of records of the 

 birds from year to year. Since their disappearance, 

 however, things have changed: everybody is alert for 

 pigeons, and everybody has a theory; but beyond offer- 

 ing subject of social conversation, or awakening a re- 



