THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 191 



A Postscript. 



John C. French in a letter to 1 1. \\\ Shoemaker 

 on the dates of the appearance and departure of the 

 Passenger Pigeons in Northern Pennsylvania, says : 



I never saw one, here, later than October, nor ear- 

 lier than May, when they were so plenty that farm 

 crops of grain were sometimes destroyed in a few 

 hours. I'hree miles east from my farm they nested, 

 some years (not every year) prior to 1874, and went 

 daily to feeding grounds in ^IcKean and Forest 

 Counties (hens one day and cocks the next), going 

 over my farm flying low in the morning, returning 

 at night, flying high. The whole valley would be 

 filled, from north hills to the south hills, more than 

 a mile, with strata above strata of pigeons, sometimes 

 eight courses deep and for an hour of a morning, or 

 more, they flowed westward, a mile a minute, with a 

 roar of wings like a tornado and the deep shadow of 

 a heavy thunder shower. Their nests were in a little 

 hollow where hemlock trees stood thickest and usually 

 covered about twenty acres, say <S00 to 1,000 trees, 

 nests on every limb, except ten or twelve feet at the 

 treetops ; and were regular in outside borders, even 

 leaving one-half the limbs of an occupied tree, out- 

 side of the 'city' and one-half inside of it with 

 nests on all limbs inside the 'city' boundaries and no 

 nests on limbs outside of the boundaries. The *city' 

 was in form of a parallelogram, say approximately 

 forty rods by eight rods. I saw another 'city' in the 



