THE OOLOGIST. 



239 



pond. The date was May 17, 1873. 

 The nests were few in number and only 

 one nest in a tree. There was but a 

 single egg in a nest; in fact this is all I 

 have found at any time. The last nest 

 that I have met with south of the 43rd 

 parallel was 40 feet up in a tamarack 

 tree in a swamp near the river, June 1, 

 1884. This nest was alone and would 

 not have been discovered had not the 

 bird flown to it. I have found several 

 instances of pairs of pigeons building 

 isolated nests, and cannot help but 

 think that if all birds had followed this 

 custom that the Pigeons would still be 

 with us in vast numbers. 



As late as May 9, 1880 my lamented 

 Mend, the late C. W. Gunn, found a 

 rookery in a cedar woods in Cheboygan 

 county. These nests contained a single 

 egg each and he secured about fifty 

 fresh eggs. He did not think their 

 number excessive as the netters were 

 killing the birds in every direction. 

 But now we can look upon such a trip 

 almost as a devastation because the 

 birds are so scarce. 



In 1885 I met with the Pigeon on 

 Mackinac Island and have found a few 

 isolated flocks in the Lower Peninsula 

 since then, generally in the fall, but it 

 is safe to say that the birds will never 

 again appear in one-thousandth part of 

 the number of former years. 



The place where the birds are nesting 

 are interesting spots to visit. Both 

 parents incubate and the scene is ani- 

 mated as the birds fly about in all di- 

 rections. However, as the bulk of the 

 birds must fly to quite a distance from 

 an immense rookery to find food, it 

 necessarily follows that the main flocks 

 arrive and depart evening and morning. 

 Then the crush is often terrific and the 

 air is fairly alive with birds. The rush 

 of their thousands of wings makes a 

 mighty noise like the sound of a stiff 

 breeze through the trees. 



Often when the large flocks settle at 

 the roost the birds crowd so closely on 



the slender limbs that they bend down 

 and sometimes crack, and the sound of 

 the dead branches falling from their 

 weight adds an additional likeness to a 

 storm. Sometimes the returning birds 

 will settle on a limb which holds nests 

 and then many eggs are dashed to the 

 grcund, and beneath the trees of a 

 rookery one may always find a lot of 

 smashed eggs. 



Later in the breeding season young 

 birds may be seen perched all over the 

 trees or on the ground, while big squabs 

 with pin feathers are seen in or rather 

 on the frail nests or lying dead or in- 

 jured on the ground. The frightful 

 destruction that is sure to accompany 

 the nesting of a rookery of Passenger 

 Pigeons is bound to attract the observ- 

 er's eye. And we cannot but under- 

 stand how it is that these unprolific 

 birds with many natural enemies, in 

 addition to that unnatural enemy, man, 

 fail to increase. If the Pigeon deposit- 

 ed ten to twenty eggs like the Quail the 

 unequal battle of equal survival might 

 be kept up. But even this is to be 

 doubted if the bird continues to nest in 

 colonies. 



Many ornithological writers have 

 written that the Wild Pigeon lays two 

 eggs as a rule, but these men were evi- 

 dently not accurate observers, and pro- 

 bably took their records at second 

 hand. There is no doubt that two eggs 

 are quite often found in a nest, 

 and sometimes these eggs are 

 both fresh, or else equally ad- 

 vanced in incubation. But these in- 

 stances I think are evidence alone that 

 two females have deposited in the same 

 nest, a supposition which is not impro- 

 bable with a gregarious species. 



That the Wild Pigeon may rear two 

 or three young in a season, 1 do not 

 doubt, and an old trapper and observer 

 has offered this theory to explain the 

 condition where there are found both 

 egg and young in the same nest, or 

 squabs of widely varied ages. He as- 



