THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 225 



startcvl to ripen. At lirst, tlicy came to the fields in 

 twos or threes, and after a pair or so started to feed 

 regularl} in a field, the nun'Mer increased daily until 

 a flock of ten, twenty or more dozens of birds would 

 come to the same field for food. As a rule, they 

 would come early in the morning to feed, ^fheir 

 visits in the afternoon for provender were irregular, 

 and they seemed to be more likely to come to the 

 buckwheat fields on afternoons of foggy days. These 

 pigeons would often collect in fiocks on fields where 

 wheat had been sown in September, and when the 

 birds were numerous, they often did considerable 

 injury to the wheat, and they frecfeuntly did much 

 damage to buckwheat crops. Wild pigeons in day- 

 light in the autumn, spent much time feeding on acorns 

 and beechnuts in hardwood forests. The birds ap- 

 peared to leave about the last of October, and return 

 in the early spring, and collected in the buckwheat 

 stubble, where they were netted ])y the hundreds of 

 thousands. 



Nested Early 



*'They began nesting early in April. The nests, 

 flimsy, flat structures, were made of small sticks and 

 twigs. Two white eggs were laid and these were a 

 trifle smaller than eggs of domestic pigeons. All the 

 nests I ever saw, were in beechwoods, and mostly on 

 beech trees. I have seen from six to twenty-five, 

 and even more nests on a single tree. The eggs or 

 young could often be seen from the ground through 



