THE OOLOGIST 



191 



494 

 495 



497 



498 



511b 



524 

 604 

 fi05 



621a 



68 Id 



652 

 704 

 705 

 761 

 768 



Bobolink. Quite common. 



Cowbird. Common. 



Yellow-headed Blackbird. Abund- 

 ant, large colonies in marshes. 



Red-winged Blackbird. Abund- 

 ant. 



Bronzed Grackle. Abundant. 



American Goldfinch. Common. 



Dickcissel. Quite common. 



T.ark Bunting. Plentiful. 



Puriile Mai-tin. Rare, a 

 tion a few years ago 

 they were numerous. 

 White-rumped Shrike. 



mon. 

 Xorthern Maryland Yellow- 

 throat. Common. 



Yellow Warbler. Plentiful. 



Catbird. Rather uncommon. 



Brown Thrasher. Common. 



American Robin. Common. 



Bluebird. Common. 



visita- 

 when 



Com- 



Lost Tribe of Birds. 



One of the greatest ornithological 

 mysteries, and one that has never 

 been solved, according to the Battle 

 Creek, Mich., correspondent of the 

 New York Herald, is the disappear- 

 ance of the wild pigeon of North Am- 

 erica. Michigan figured conspicuously 

 in this great bird tragedy, because it 

 was the nesting place of the pigeons, 

 and it was in this state that the last 

 great flock was seen passing suddenly 

 and completely out of sight of man, 

 and only existing in memory. 



The young folk of to-day have no 

 conception of the magnitude of the 

 numbers of the wild pigeons in Michi- 

 gan, The flocks numbered millions. 

 It was the same throughout the North- 

 west. Audubon and Wilson, the no- 

 ted ornithologists, tell of the almost 

 inconceivable numbers they saw in 

 the early part of the nineteenth cent- 

 ury in the valley of the Mississippi 

 and its tributaries. Audubon tells of 

 having seen the birds in such num- 

 bers in Kentucky that the noondav 

 sun was obscured as if by an eclipse. 

 This flight continued uniterrunted and 

 in undminishing numbers for three 

 days in succession. Audubon visited 



one Kentucky roost that was forty 

 miles long and three miles wide So 

 swift and comi)lete has been the ex- 

 tinction that to-day not one out of a 

 thousand persons now in Michigan 

 ever saw a wild pigeon. 



The sight of the flight of the pig- 

 eons was a magnificent one. Nothing 

 more beautiful was ever seen in bird 

 life. The birds were the personifica- 

 tion of grace and motion when in 

 flight. They came in countless num- 

 bers, the flocks extending from hori- 

 zon to horizon, one flock following 

 close upon the another. Those were 

 the halycon days of hunting in Michi- 

 gan, but, alas! were fatal days for 

 the pigeon. 



The most noted migration in this 

 state was the great flight of 1876. 

 Late one afternoon on a dismal March 

 dav the pigeons began to arrive near 

 Petoskey. The birds came in two 

 bodies, one directly from the south by 

 land, and the other following the east 

 coast of Wisconsin until they reached 

 the Manitou Islands, when this great 

 army of birds changed its course and 

 flew straight across Lake Michigan. 

 This latter body came in from the 

 lake just before dark. Those persons 

 who saw it say it was a compact mass 

 fully six miles long and two miles 

 wide. The first flock to arrive in the 

 woods near Petoskey was almost as 

 large. 



With a foot of snow covering the 

 ground in the woods, where the sun 

 could not reach it, but with the fields 

 bare, this monstrous body of birds be- 

 gan to build their nests. Their nest- 

 ing grounds were twentv miles long 

 and from three to five miles wide. 

 From Petoskey for nine miles through 

 hard wood timber, then across the riv- 

 er swamp, and then through twenty 

 miles of white pine, did this throng of 

 birds build their nests. The noise 

 made by them was deafening, their 



