76 Zbe Warbler 



I have watched the coming and going of the countless clouds of Pigeons as 

 they flew morning and night, so as, at times, to hide the sun for a half hour 

 at a time as they flew back and forth from the forests two miles away. I 

 well remember being shown the great patches of tree tops all bare and brok- 

 en down by the endless numbers of Pigeons roosting in the woods, and my 

 grandfather showed me and told me how, with long poles, at dusk they 

 would go and kill them for the Chicago game markets. I wondered at it, 

 as they drove up at dark with the great loads of barreled Passenger Pigeons, 

 little imagining that in my lifetime there would come a day when the ap- 

 pearance of one in a locality would be recorded in one or more of the orni- 

 thological journals. 



The exact location of the pigeon roosts mentioned was 60 miles north- 

 west of Chicago, in Mc Henry county, 111., in the old Indian forests which 

 my grandfather bought of the famous Black Hawk Chief, of the Sac and 

 Fox Indians, who was born in 1767 and died the year 1838. He sold the 

 forest to my grand-parent Wm. M. Jackson, first U. S. land surveyor of the 

 city of Chicago at the time of old Ft. Dearborn. 



Early Breeding of the Mourning Dove 



{Zenaidura macrourd) 



By John Lewis Childs 



SOME portions of Suffolk County, Long Island, appear to be favorite 

 resorts for the Turtle or Mourning Dove, which, at best, is a rather 

 rare bird so far north as New York. I have seen more of these Doves on 

 the extensive game preserve of the Wyandanch Club at Smithtown, Long 

 Island, than anywhere else. The tract or area controlled by the club is 

 about thirteen thousand acres in extent, and the Doves appear to like dry, 

 sandy stretches of land covered more or less with scrub-oak, and in places 

 with heavy chestnut timber and pines. Even wild scrub-oak tracts that 

 have been more or less burned over are favorite haunts. 



It was in a situation of this sort that I found a nest of the Mourning 

 Dove on April 20th last. It was located upon the ground at the foot of a 

 small decaying stub, and was plainly visible for a distance of fifty feet from 

 all sides. The bird flushed at my approach, and on going to the nest I found 

 that one of the two eggs was about to hatch, as it was already pipped in 

 three places. The nest consisted of only a few small sticks and pine needles 

 which has been collected together and laid squarely on top of the ground, 

 not so much as a depression in the soil to give shape or semblance to a nest. 

 I regret very much that I did not have a camera with me with which 



