456 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



rows of the Michigan Agricultural College, who has collected 

 many data regarding this bird, says that it was abundant in 

 Michigan until 1880, fairly common from 1880 to 1890, but 

 steadily decreasing in numbers, and was by no means rare in 

 1891, 1892 and 1893. Then it rapidly became scarce, and 

 disappeared. There were many smaller nestings for years 

 after the Petoskey nesting of 1878, but the records are 

 meager, for apparently no naturalist visited them. The 

 Petoskey nesting of 1878 was unusually large for that time, 

 for the reason that the birds at three large breeding places in 

 other States or regions were driven out by persecution, and 

 joined the Petoskey group. After this the birds exhibited a 

 tendency to scatter to regions where they were least molested. 

 There seem to have been two great nestings in Michigan in 

 1881. Brewster quotes Mr. S. S. Stevens of Cadillac, Mich., 

 as saying that the last nesting of any importance in Michigan 

 was in 1881, a few miles west of Grand Traverse. It was 

 perhaps eight miles long. Pigeons were common in Iowa in 

 1884 (Anderson: Birds of Iowa). Mr. A. S. Eldredge writes 

 that he saw a flight of Pigeons near Lampasas, Tex., in the 

 winter of 1882-83, that was three and one-half hours in pass- 

 ing; and that he saw a roost among the post oaks where 

 every tree was loaded with the birds. 



Our Canadian records of the species at this time are 

 meager. Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton says that it bred in 

 Manitoba in considerable numbers as late as 1887; but he 

 also says (Auk, 1908, p. 452) that the last year in which the 

 Pigeons came to Manitoba "in force" was in 1878; next 

 year they were comparatively scarce, and each year since 

 they have become more so. In 1881 McCoun saw large 

 flocks there, and shot large numbers for food; and the eggs of 

 this species were taken by Miles Spence at James Bay as late 

 as 1888. The species was recorded in Montreal and other 

 localities in east Canada in 1883, 1885, 1886, 1888 and 1891.^ 



In 1882 Widmann saw several large flocks, February 5 and 

 6, going northward at St. Louis. (Birds of Missouri, p. 84.) 



Up to 1886 live Pigeons came into the Chicago market in 



» McCoun, John: Catalogue of Canadian Birds, 1900, Part 1, pp. 215,216. 



