ioo Bird - Lore 



Wherever the Pigeon nested, the pigeoners soon found them, and destroyed 

 most of the young in the nests and many of the adult birds as well. Every 

 great market from St. Louis to Boston received hundreds or thousands of 

 barrels of Pigeons practically every season. The New York market at times 

 took one hundred barrels a day without a break in price. Often a single west- 

 ern town near the nesting-grounds shipped millions of Pigeons to the markets 

 during the nesting season, as shown by the shipping records. Nesting after 

 nesting was broken up and the young destroyed for many years until, in 1878, 

 the Pigeons, driven by persecution from many states, concentrated largely 

 in a few localities in Michigan, where a tremendous slaughter took place. 

 These were the last great nesting grounds of which we have any record. Smaller 

 nestings were known for ten years afterward, and large numbers of Pigeons 

 were seen and killed; but after 1890 the Pigeons grew less and less in number 

 until 1898, when the last recorded instances of their capture occurred that 

 can now be substantiated by preserved specimens. Since that time, there are 

 two apparently authentic instances of the capture of the Pigeon recorded, one 

 in Ohio and the other in Wisconsin, and my investigations have revealed a 

 few more which have been published in my 'History of the Game Birds, Wild 

 Fowl and Shore Birds.' Mr. Otto Widmann, who kindly undertook to look 

 into the history of the Passenger Pigeon for me in the markets of St. Louis, 

 states that Mr. F. H. Miller of that place, a marketman who has sold and 

 handled large quantities of Pigeons, received twelve dozen from Rogers, 

 Arkansas, in 1902 and, later, a single bird, shipped to him from Black River 

 in 1906. No exact dates can be given. Mr. Glover M. Allen, in his list of the 

 'Aves, Fauna of New England,' published by the Boston Society of Natural 

 History in 1909, records a specimen killed at Bar Harbor, Maine, in 1904. 

 A careful investigation leads me to believe that this is an authentic record, 

 although I have not yet seen the specimen. 



It was mounted by Mr. J. Bert Baxter, of Bangor, and was seen by Mr. 

 Harry Merrill, who was perfectly competent to identify it. The specimen, 

 when mounted, was returned to the man who shot it, but Mr. Baxter lost his 

 record of the name of the owner. Mr. A. Learo, taxidermist, of Montreal, 

 informs me that a specimen was taken by Mr. Pacificque Couture in St. Vin- 

 cent, Province of Quebec, Canada, September 23, 1907. Mr. Learo states 

 that he has returned the bird to Mr. Couture, but I have been unable to find 

 the gentleman or learn anything more about the specimen. Therefore this 

 may not be authentic. I have investigated other statements which have 

 been published regarding recent alleged occurrences of the Passenger Pigeon 

 in Canada, and find that the birds taken were Mourning Doves. 



Now for the last living Passenger Pigeon of which we have any infor- 

 mation. David Whittaker, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, procured a pair of 

 young birds from an Indian in northeastern Wisconsin in 1888. During the 

 eight succeeding years, fifteen birds were bred from this pair, six males and 



