Recollections of "Old Timers" 135 



remember having caught several in that way. As 

 clearly as I can remember, they left all at once along 

 about 1875. I have seen a few here along about 1882, 

 and one fall in October, I think, of 1884, I saw two or 

 three, the last I remember of them. 



Kalamazoo, Mich., June 13th, 1905. 

 Wm. B. Mershon, Saginavs^, Mich. : 



It seems too bad that this noble bird should have 

 been blotted out. The last flock, a small one, that I 

 ever saw was in 189 1. I saw pigeons in 1883, 1885 

 and 1886. 



I have been in their nesting grounds. The males and 

 the females sit on the nest on alternate days. When 

 their big nesting was near South Haven in this State, 

 the birds used to fly over this town every day in their 

 .quest for food, some of them going fully seventy-five 

 miles in an air line from their nesting. One day it 

 would be a continuous stream of male birds and the 

 next day it would be the females. 



How the netters did massacre them and ship them 

 away by thousands and thousands. Many were kept 

 alive and shipped all over the country for pigeon 

 shoots. The last wild pigeons ever used for this pur- 

 pose that I know of was at John Watson's Grand Gross- 

 ing, Chicago, Illinois, in 1886. I asked Watson, in 

 February last, where he got those birds, and he said 



