CHAPTER XII 

 The Last of the Pigeons 



From " The Auk," July, 1897, under the title " Additional Records 

 of the Passenger Pigeon (^Ectepistes migratorius.y 



MOST of the notes on the Passenger Pigeon 

 recorded in the past year have referred to 

 single birds or pairs. It is with much pleas- 

 ure that I now call attention to a flock of some fifty, 

 observed in southern Missouri. I am not only greatly 

 indebted to Mr. Chas. H. Holden, jr., for this inter- 

 esting information, but for the present of a beautiful 

 pair which he sent me in the flesh, he having shot them 

 as they flew rapidly overhead. Mr. Holden was, at 

 the time (December 17, 1896), hunting quail in Attie, 

 Oregon County, Mo. The residents of this hamlet 

 had not seen any pigeons there before in some years. 



Simon Pokagon, Chief of the remaining Pottawatta- 

 mie tribe, and probably the best posted man on the wild 

 pigeon in Michigan, writes me under date of October 

 16, 1896: "I am creditably informed that there was a 

 small nesting of pigeons last spring not far from the 

 headwaters of the Au Sable River in Michigan." Mr. 

 Chase S. Osborn, State Game and Fish Warden of 

 Michigan, under date, Sault Ste. Marie, March 2, 1897, 



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