o54 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. [july 



into the open ground, that we might have a better chance of 

 shooting them. I have seen bagfuls of them that had been killed 

 by no more formidable weapons than poles swung right and left 

 at them as they flew close past. The rate at which they fly is 

 wonderful, and has been computed at about a mile a minute, at 

 which rate they keep on for hours together, darting forward with 

 rapid beats of their wings very much as our ordinary pigeons do." 



New England. 



In New England, Champlain seems to be the first (July 12, 1604) 

 to record the Wild Pigeon. Of an Island Harbor in latitude 

 43° 25' near Cape Porpoise, he says: l "There are in these islands 

 so many red currants that one sees for the most part nothing else, 

 and an infinite number of pigeons, of which we took a great quan- 

 tity." The year following, 1605, James Rosier wrote 2 'A True 

 Relation of the Voyage of Captaine George Waymouth' where, in 

 his "A Briefe Note of what Profits we saw the Country yeeld in 

 the small time of our stay there," he enumerates "Turtle-doves." 



In 1622, Captain John Smith reports, 3 "great flocks of Turtles, 

 .... Pigeons," etc. The same year, we have another note which 

 says : 4 ' 'The country aboundeth with diversity of wild fowl, as ... . 

 many doves, especially when strawberries are ripe." A few years 

 later, March 12, 1631, Gov. Dudley, in a "Letter to the Countess 

 of Lincoln," thinks of the vast flights as omens. He writes as 

 follows: 5 "Upon the eighth of March, from after it was fair day 

 light, until about eight of the clock in the forenoon, there flew over 

 all the towns in our plantations, so many flocks of doves, each 

 flock containing many thousands, and some so many, that they 

 obscured the light, that it passeth credit, if but the truth should 

 be written; and the thing was the more strange, because I scarce 



1 Champlain. Sieur de. Voyages of. Voyage in the year 1604. The Publications 

 of the Prince Society, Vol. XII, 1878, Boston, pp. 68, 69. 



2 Original Narratives of Early American History, Vol. II. New York, 1906, p. 393. 



3 Smith, Capt. John, Works of, 1608-1631. Edited by Edward Arber. New 

 England Trials, London. 2nd edition, p. 261. 



1 A Brief Relation of the Discovery and Plantation of New England. London , 

 1622. Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, IX, 1S22, p. 18. 

 s Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., VIII, 1802, p. 45. 



