176 MEMOIRS OF THE NUTTALL ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 



76. Ectopistes migratorius (Linn.). 

 Passenger Pigeon. Wild Pigeon. 



Formerly a transient visitor in spring and autumn, sometimes occurring in immense num- 

 bers ; now exceedingly rare, and perhaps extinct. 



SEASONAL OCCURRENCE. 



April 23, 1875, one ad. male' taken, Waltham, W. Brewster. 

 October 21, 1871, one female taken, Watertown, W. E. D. Scott. 



Of the many passages which might be cited, attesting the extraordinary 

 abundance of Wild Pigeons in New England in former times, that published in 

 1634 by Wood is perhaps the most pertinent to the present connection, since it 

 evidently relates in part to a locality (the neighborhood of Lynn) only a few 

 miles distant from the Cambridge Region to which, without doubt, it might 

 equally well have been applied. It is as follows : "Thefe Birds come into the 

 Countrey, to goe to the North parts in the beginning of our Spring, at which 

 time (if I may be counted worthy, to be beleeved in a thing that is not fo ftrange 

 as true) I have feene them fly as if the Ayerie regiment had beene Pigeons ; 

 feeing neyther beginning nor ending, length, or breadth of thefe Millions of 

 Millions. The f houting of people, the ratling of Gunnes, and pelting of fmall 

 f hotte could not drive them out of their courfe, but fo they continued for foure or 

 five houres together : yet it muft not be concluded, that it is thus often ; for it 

 is but at the beginning of the Spring, and at Michaelmas, when they returne 

 backe to the Southward ; yet are there fome all the yeare long, which are eafily 

 attayned by fuch as looke after them. Many of them build amongft the Pine-trees, 

 thirty miles to the North-eaft of our plantations ; joyning neft to neft, and tree 

 to tree by their nefts, fo that the Sunne never fees the ground in that place, 

 from whence the Indians fetch whole loades of them."^ 



Dr. Samuel Cabot told me, shortly before his death, that when he was at Har- 

 vard College (1832-1836) Passenger Pigeons visited Cambridge regularly in both 

 spring and autumn, sometimes in immense numbers. He dwelt particularly on the 

 recollection of a morning in early spring when the ground was still covered with 

 three or four inches of snow and when, as he was crossing the College Grounds 



'No. 215, collection of William Brewster. 



* William Wood, New Englands Prospect, ed. i, 1635, 24. Charles Deane's ed.,1865, 31-32. 



