1911 J General Notes. 259 



Note on the Killdeer in Maine. — A detail which is perhaps worth 

 preserving of the great flight of Killdeer (Oxyechus vociferus) along the 

 coast of Maine in 1888 has never found its way into print. This relates 

 to the duration of the stay of the birds near Portland. A note by myself l 

 made the limit December 4. Dr. Arthur P. Chadbourne's article, 2 dealing 

 with the entire subject of the flight along the Atlantic coast, advanced 

 the date to December 10 on evidence obtained from lighthouse keepers. 

 About the middle of the following January, after my note had gone to 

 press, G. E. Staples, surf man No. 2 of the Cape Elizabeth life-saving crew, 

 reported to me that the plover were seen in twos and threes on the Cape 

 up to December 25, 1888, and that his half-brother, W. D. Dresser, shot 

 three of them on that day. Staples said that about twenty birds were 

 noted after December 4, if all which he saw were to be considered as seen 

 but once. It may be added that Hon. John M. Kaler, of Scarboro, told me 

 at the same time that the Killdeer visited Prout's Neck in that town during 

 the height of the flight. — Nathan Clifford Brown, Portland, Maine. 



The Passenger Pigeon in Missouri Fifty Years Ago.'* — In the issue 

 of 'The Youth's Companion' of February 9, 1911, under the head of 

 Nature and Science, I notice an article on the Passenger Pigeon. You 

 say the latest record of a great flock noted by Mr. Wright was in the 

 Mississippi Valley in 1844. I have seen great flocks of pigeons at a much 

 later date in Missouri. 



I was born near Pisgah, in Cooper County, Missouri in 1852. In the 

 latter part of the fifties and the early sixties I saw flocks that, as you say, 

 almost darkened the sky. I shall try to tell you how they looked to me 

 and when I saw them, asking you to make due allowance for a boy's method 

 of fixing dates. 



On the Moniteau, a creek that runs through Moniteau and Cooper 

 counties, about four miles from Pisgah, is a stretch of land known to this 

 day as "The Pigeon Roost," and there they came by millions. I have 

 watched them for hours. 



As I remember, they would start out early in the morning for their 

 feeding grounds and in the afternoon, about four o'clock, they would 

 begin returning to this roost. From that time until it was too dark to 

 see, I have watched that unbroken line stretched against the sky as far 

 as the eye could reach. Not in straight lines they flew; I remember 

 thinking it looked like some mighty river winding its way through the air. 

 In the roosting place the trees were broken in pieces by them and thousands 

 would be left crippled or killed — for the foxes and other wild animals 

 to feed upon. 



1 Auk, VI, p. 69. 



2 Auk, VI, p. 256. 



3 This and the following note on the Passenger Pigeon were kindly trans- 

 mitted by the editors of ' The Youth's Companion.' 



