136 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



or two young in the same nest, but that fully half the nests which he had 

 examined contained only one. 



"Oui* personal experience with the Pigeon in Michigan wa'S as follows: 



"During our stay at Cadillac we saw them daily, sometimes singly, usually 

 in pairs, never more than two together. Nearly every large tract of old growth 

 mixed woods seemed to contain at least one pair. They appeared to be settled 

 for the season, and we were convinced that they were preparing to breed. In 

 fact, the oviduct of a female, killed May 10, contained an egg nearly ready for 

 the shell. 



"At Oden we had a similar experience, although there were perhaps fewer 

 Pigeons there than about Cadillac. 



"On May 24, Mr. Dwight settled any possible question as to their breeding 

 in scattered pairs, by finding a nest on which he distinctly saw a bird sitting. 

 The following day I accompanied him to this nest, which was at least 50 feet 

 above the ground, on the horizontal branch of a large hemlock, about 20 feet 

 out from the trunk. As we approached the spot an adult male Pigeon started 

 from a tree near that on which the nest was placed, and a moment later a 

 young bird, with stub tail and barely able to fly, fluttered feebly after it. 

 This young Pigeon was probably the bird seen the previous day on the nest, 

 for on climbing to the latter, Mr. Dwight found it empty, but fouled with excre- 

 ment, some of which was perfectly fresh. A thorough investigation of the 

 surrounding woods, which were a hundred acres or more in extent, and com- 

 posed chiefly of beeches, with a mixture of white pines and hemlocks of the 

 largest size, convinced us that no other Pigeons were nesting in them. 



"All the netters with whom we talked believe firmly that there ai'e just as 

 many Pigeons in the West as there ever were. They say the birds have been 

 driven from Michigan and the adjoining States, partly by persecution, and 

 partly by the destruction of the forests, and have retreated to uninhabited 

 regions, perhaps north of the Great Lakes in British North America. Doubt- 

 less there is some truth in this theory; for, that the Pigeon is not, as has 

 been asserted so often recently, on the verge of extinction, is shown by the 

 flight which passed through Michigan in the spring of 1888. This flight, 

 according to the testimony of many reliable observers, was a large one, and 

 the birds must have formed a nesting of considerable extent in some region 

 so remote that no news of its presence reached the ears of the vigilant net- 

 ters. Thus it is probable that enough Pigeons are left to restock the West, 

 provided that laws sufficiently stringent to give them fair protection be at 

 once enacted. The present laws of Michigan and Wisconsin are simply 

 worse than useless, for, while they prohibit disturbing the birds ivithin the 

 nesting, they allow unlimited netting only a few miles beyond its outskirts 

 during the entire breeding season. The theory is, that they are so infinitely 

 numerous that their ranks are not seriously thinned by catching a few mil- 

 lions of breeding birds in a summer, and that the onlj- danger to be guarded 

 against is that of frightening them away by the use of guns or nets in the 



