762 REPORT OF STATE GEOLOGIST. 



for the last forty years, and are probably not half so numerous as they 

 formerly were." 



Hon. H. D. Johnson, a native of Franklin County, now a resident 

 of Salt Lake City, Utah, informs me that, when a boy, some time be- 

 tween 1820 and 1830, he remembers going with some men to a 

 "pigeon roost," in Springfield or Bath Township. He remembers its 

 site was marked by an extensive windfall. There, upon the bushes, 

 the pigeons nested in countless numbers, and the object of their visit 

 was to catch squabs. He thinks they nested there for several years. 

 Mr. B. S. Miner, of Leota, Ind., writes me of a roost in Scott County 

 which existed from before he can recollect. He remembers it first in 

 1840. The birds would begin to fly to it in large flocks about one hour 

 before night, and would continue, with intervals, till dark. When at 

 roost they would break down the timber. They occupied the roost for 

 two or three years, and then, after a few years' absence, would return. 

 This continued until about 1855, since which date they have roosted 

 there but one year; that was since the rebellion. They did not nest 

 there. Mr. Angus Gaines says Pigeons once roosted in Knox County 

 in vast numbers. Mr. W. W. Pfrimmer says they formerly nested in 

 great numbers in the timber along the Kankakee River, in Newton 

 County. Mr. Wm. Brewster, in his article "On the Present Status of 

 the Wild Pigeon," says a man told him the largest nesting he ever vis- 

 ited was in 1876 or 1877. It began near Petoskey and extended north- 

 east past Crooked Lake for 28 miles, averaging three or four miles 

 wide. The birds arrived in two separate bodies, one directly from the 

 south by land, the other following the east coast of Wisconsin, and 

 crossing Manitou Island. He saw the latter body come in from the 

 lake at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon. It was a compact mass of 

 Pigeons, at least five miles long by one mile wide. The birds began 

 building when the snow was twelve inches deep in the woods, although 

 the fields were bare at the time. So rapidly did the colony extend its 

 boundaries that it soon passed literally over and around the place 

 where he was netting, although, when he began, this point was several 

 miles from the nearest nest. 



Nestings usually start in deciduous woods, but during their prog- 

 ress the Pigeons do not skip any kind of trees they encounter. The 

 Petoskey nesting extended eight miles through hardwood timber, then 

 crossed a river bottom wooded with arbor-vitse, and thence stretched 

 through white pine woods about twenty miles. For the entire dis- 

 tance of twenty-eight miles every tree of any size had more or less 

 nests, and many trees were filled with them. None were lower than 

 about fifteen feet above the ground. Pigeons are very noisy when 



