174 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



near extinction he would have had the specimen 

 mounted. Every one in Central Pennsylvania knows 

 Jake Zimmerman, proprietor of the cozy Zimmerman 

 Hospice, on the mountain top ahove Milton. Thou- 

 sands of tourists, fishermen, hunters and motorists 

 have enjoyed the hospitality of this Alpine retreat, 

 pronouncing it one of the most picturesque resorts 

 in the whole of the Pennsylvania highlands. One 

 afternoon, during oats harvest in 1900, Zimmerman 

 was in his field when he saw^ a single wild pigeon flying 

 above his head in a northwesterly direction. He had 

 not seen a passenger pigeon previous to that for 

 nearly twenty years. "Charlie" Springer, also pro- 

 prietor of a mountain resort on the Coudersport pike, 

 northwest of Jersey Shore, states that he saw about 

 a dozen wild pigeons in one of his fields in the spring 

 of 1905. These are but a few instances, jotted down 

 at random, showing the recent appearance of the pas- 

 senger pigeon in Pennsylvania. Is it extinct? Only 

 the mountains, the stag-topped original white pines 

 and the roaring streams can answer, and we do not 

 understand their language as yet. If a sincere doubter 

 wishes to have his wavering belief refreshed let him 

 read ''Birds of New York", published at Albany about 

 1906. No less an authority than John Burroughs is 

 quoted as having seen large flocks of passenger pigeons 

 in the Catskill Mountains in the first few years of the 

 twentieth century. A young male passenger pigeon 

 was killed at Canandaigua, New York, in the fall of 

 1898. The writer has a young male pigeon, nicely 



