Pigeons by the Million^ 

 The Great Nesting Grounds in Pennsylvania 



^^ Bradford, Penna., May 8. — Millions of wild pigeons are 

 nesting in the woods on the borders of Forest and Warren 

 Counties, in what is known as the Spring Creek region. The 

 country thereabout is almost an unbroken wilderness, a few 

 bark-peelers, log-cutters, and oil well ' wild-catters ' forming 

 the entire population. The vast beech woods that cover much 

 of the area afford the food that attracts the pigeons to the 

 locality, every fruitful beechnut year being sure to be followed 

 by the appearance of the birds in greater or less numbers. The 

 beech tree is uncertain in its yield of nuts, and never bears two 

 years in succession. When the trees bear well thousands and 

 thousands of bushels of the nuts fall to the ground after the 

 frosts of Autumn. They are covered by the falhng leaves and 

 buried deep beneath succeeding snow, their soundness and 

 sweetness are preserved, and on the approach of Spring the 

 pigeons swarm to the beech woods to feed on the nuts, which 

 are their favorite food, and at the same time mate, nest, and 

 hatch their young." 



At this point the unknown author propounds an astounding 

 theory that during the southern migration the main body sends 

 out "flocks of scouting pigeons" to the beech woods to learn 

 the " condition of the nut crop," and that this information is 

 used the following Spring to decide the location of the great 

 nesting colonies! The source of this theory and in fact much 



^ This article, offered for reprinting by Dr. Louis B. Bishop, appeared in 

 the Sunday issue of the New York Times, May 9, 1886, and is valuable as a 

 contemporary account of a species virtually extinct. Although some of the 

 statements are rendered dubious by a context of astonishing theories, there is 

 a residue, sufficiently reliable to warrant a reprint almost in full. Italics and 

 comments are the editor's. 



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