SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 435 



conception" in the middle States and in Canada/ He states, 

 in his monograph of the Passenger Pigeon, that there are certain 

 years " when they come to Pennsylvania and the southern 

 English provinces in such indescribable multitudes as to appal 

 the people." - The year 1740 was one of the years when they 

 came to Pennsylvania and New Jersey in incredible multitudes. 

 He also states that Dr. Golden told him that he had twice 

 seen similar great flights between New York and Albany. 



G. H. Hollister, in the History of Connecticut (1855), says 

 that pigeons were innumerable in spring and autumn and were 

 startled from the thickets in summer.^ 



Massachusetts authors make brief but numerous references 



to the species. 



Wood (1629-34) records the migration through eastern 

 Massachusetts in the following words: "These Birds come 

 into the Countrey, to goe to the North parts in the beginning 

 of our Spring, at which time (if I may be counted worthy, to 

 be beleeved in a thing that is not so strange as true) I have 

 scene them fly as if the Ayerie regiment had beene Pigeons; 

 seeing neyther beginning nor ending, length, or breadth of 

 these Millions of Millions. The shouting of people, the rat- 

 ling of Gunnes, and pelting of small shotte could not drive 

 them out of their course, but so they continued for foure or 

 five houres together: yet it must not be concluded, that it is 

 thus often; for it is but at the beginning of the Spring, and at 

 Michaelmas, when they returne backe to the Southward; yet 

 are there some all the yeare long, which are easily attayned 

 by such as looke after them. Many of them build amongst 

 the Pine-trees, thirty miles to the North-east of our planta- 

 tions: joyning nest to nest, and tree to tree by their nests, so 

 that the Sunne never sees the ground in that place, from 

 whence the Indians fetch whole loades of them." ^ This nest- 

 ing must have been somewhere near the coast of Essex, or, as 



1 Kalm, Peter: Travels into North America, 1770 (first English ed.), Vol. U, pp. 82. 311. 



2 Kalm, Peter: A Description of the Wild Pigeons which visit the Southern English Colonies in 

 North America during Certain Years in Incredible Multitudes, translated by S. M. Gronberger from 

 Kongl. Vetenskaps-Akademiena Handlingar for ar 1759, Vol. XX, Stockholm, 1759; now published 

 in the Auk, 1911, pp. 53-66. 



3 Hollister, G. H.: History of Connecticut, 1855, Vol. I, pp. 33, 34. 



* Wood, William: New England's Prospect, Pub. Prince Soc, 1865, pp. 31, 32. 



