204 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



tional and the American Ornithologists' Union provide 

 definitely for the enforcement of the principle of 

 anteriority (page precedence) in such cases. We 

 should, therefore, hereafter call the Passenger Pigeon 

 Bcfopistes canadensis (Linnaeus). 



HARRY C. OBERHOLSER. 



In the same issue of ''Science" John AI. Clarke, 

 Director of the Xew York State Aluseum, transmits a 

 letter from M. Rasmussen, of Amsterdam, N. Y., who 

 claims to have seen a flock of about thirty wild 

 pigeons in a buckwheat field on October 1, 1918. He 

 is sure of his identification apart from seeing the 

 flock, ''by the whistling sound of their wings," hav- 

 ing seen wild pigeons "near Ithaca, about twenty years 

 ago." Captain Emerson Hough, in commenting on the 

 above statement, says that a mourning dove's wings 

 'Svhistle the same as a wild pigeon's, also that no one 

 '^an remember a peculiar sound exactly after twenty 

 years, and even tame pigeons have an audible whistle 

 to their wings when in flight." He adds that doves, 

 'Svhen seen at a distance invariably look large, and it 

 is incredible that if the flocks of pigeons which are re- 

 ported as being seen somewhere every year, do not 

 increase, and become plentiful again." H. A\'. S. 



