CHAPTER X 



Nesting Cities and Elxtinction of This Bird — Com- 

 ments of a Forester on Signs of an 

 Approaching Nesting 



THE last pigeon nesting in Pennsylvania occurred 

 in 1886, as has been already emphasized, although 

 there may have been many isolated smaller groups that 

 brooded within our extensive forest areas, since then. 

 The cities in 1866 and in 1870 are remembered very 

 distinctly by many men living in Potter county and 

 elsewhere. Each of those years a colony was estab- 

 lished about three miles east of my farm in the Alle- 

 gheny river valley; and they flew past every day, to 

 distant feeding grounds; the hens one day and the 

 cocks the next day, flying rapidly, and returning to- 

 ward night, flying high, above the hills. There were 

 other feeding grounds, to the south, and those that did 

 not make the longer flight, each alternate day, into 

 Forest county, while the squabs were being fed, made 

 the shorter flight to get food for individual require- 

 ment. On each morning the valley, a mile wide, be- 

 tween the hills, was filled, strata above strata, eight 

 courses deep at times, for about an hour, with the 

 multitude of birds flowing westward, at the rate of 

 about a mile a minute, going after food. 



The roar of wings was like a tornado in the tree- 

 tops and the morning was darkened as by a heavy 



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