494 
CiIxiMI3EK8’S J0UI12^AL. 
Lime up to 1894 authentic reports of occasional 
nights are recorded. From 1894 to 1902 they were 
seen in pairs or an occasional half-do/sen birds 
together ; but since that time I cannot find any 
absolutely authentic facts to show that passenger 
jjigeons are living in the wild state, with the excep- 
tion of the report of the Fish and<j!ame Commission 
of the State of Massachusetts for the year ending 
December 31, 1903, in which mention is made 
by Deputy-Warden Samuel Parker of Wakeheld, 
Mass., of his having seen in the spring of that year 
a Hock of twenty-five or thirty pigeons passing over 
Crystal Lake. The authority seems high and the 
report authentic, and I hope Mr Parker was not 
mistaken ; but I am afraid he was. 
A small body of passenger pigeons in captivity 
are in the possession of Dr C. 0. Whitman, of the 
University of Chicago ; but these are fast dying out 
owing to the inability to introduce any new stock, 
they having become inbred and unproductive. 
Mr H. T. Phillips of Detroit says that at the 
Petosky netting in 1879 there were three hundred 
professional pigeon-netters, those who followed the 
flights froni one nesting to another ; and besides these 
there were the natives — probably as many more. 
A professional netter named Osborn, who was 
living in southern Michigan in 1898, kept a record 
of his trapping for about twenty years, and here 
are some instances of the enormous number of birds 
taken at one springing of the net : ‘ In 1862, at 
Monroe, Wisconsin, George Paxon and mj^self made 
one haid of two hundred and fifty dozen birds. 
We built a pen sixty-four feet long by thirty-two 
feet wide, with nets sprung across the top. We fed 
at this one bed over five hundred bushels of corn, 
and at other beds we were maintaining at the same 
tune nearly as mucli. In 1871 Charles Curtin took 
over one hundred dozen. At Chebo}'gan in 1868 
I took over six hundred fat birds before sunrise.’ 
There are records in my possession of other 
netters, showing that professionals took at one 
springing of the net from one hundred to one 
hundred and thirty-five dozen birds. An old pro- 
fessional netter says that at the Logan County roose 
in Ohio he killed at one shot of a two-barrel six-inch 
bore shoulder-gun one hundred and forty-four birds. 
I have tried to avoid filling this article with dry 
statistics, but have shown from quotations from 
various writers how plentiful, almost beyond com- 
prehension, these birds were a hundred years ago, 
that they are extinct now, and the tremendous 
slaughter that was Avaged upon them continuously. 
There is no Avild animal or bird that can main- 
tain the balance that nature has established against 
the unlicensed, unlimited, commercial ferocity of 
mankind. 
Chaiabers's Journal, Si xth 3eries . Vol.Vlll, July 1, 190 
No. 396. 
O C II HOAG: A NEW S U AI ]\I E H H E S O H. 
W. C. MACKEiStZlE, F.S.A.Scot., Author of History of the Outer Hebr 
R JbUN M‘CULLOCH, Sh Walter 
Scott’Ncorrespondent, drew a some- 
Avhat sombre sketch of Loch Eoag 
Avhen giving\his impressions of the 
scenery on tlm\Avest coast of the 
Island of LeAvis ; ahd on a dull, dark 
■day, Avhich is by no means uncomniOTi^in that part 
of the Avorld, his picture is doubtless, iiKthe main, 
correct. But the present Avr iter’s experieiicBwvas of 
a different character when sailing up the loclrNm a 
fine August day. The AAnrm sunlight smote u]X 
the rocks, shoAving up the red and Avhite of the 
gneiss and the black of the hornblende, brightenii 
the greenness of the hills, and sending a sparklednto 
the smoothness of the Avatei’. The efl'ect of irtfenery 
is, of course, largely subjecti\^e. 
Loch Koag is not too easily accessible/fc6 the tourist. 
From Stornoway, the capital of ^Lewis, Avhich is 
reached by steamer from Gbi^goAv, Liverpool, or 
MaUaig (the railAA’ay termim^^, one drives sixteen 
miles Avestward to Callendsh, Avhence the journey 
is continued by boat, fc^vhich special arrangements 
are sometimes nece^f^ary. Every one avIio goes to 
Callernish inspe^ as a matter of course, the so- 
called Druidm^reniains Avhich have been there — to 
use a conmlbn and convenient phrase— ‘from time 
innnenmmL’ They consist of a circle of monoliths 
Avitlva central stone some fifteen feet in height, and 
radiations Avliich give the remans the form of a 
cross, the total original length of the structure 
having apparently been ^dut seven hundred feet. 
There are in all forty-seven stones now, either erect 
or fallen. Theories^'fibout the origin of this remark- 
able structirre ^ plentiful, but nothing is knoAvn 
except that ojre of its uses Avas that of inhumation. 
There are/tAvo smaller circles in the immediate 
vicinitv/and at Garynahine, tAvo miles distant, there 
is a ^^ird, near Avhich is a fairly good specimen of 
of those curious archaic dAvelliugs known as 
beehives.’ 
ut noAV Ave are sailing doAvn the channel aa-IucIi 
separates Great Bernera from the mainland of 
LeAvis. XTlie navigation recpures care. There are 
sharp beno&Ai the narrow strait, the safe negotiation 
of Avhich, Avith^a head-Avind, calls for local knoAV- 
skill. But Callum at the helm 
knows his business, 'I nE in his hands the passenger 
need feel little conceinx On the right-hand side, 
the village of ‘Borvabo^ (Tackleit) in Great 
Bernera soon conies in viewgand visions of the 
Princess of Thule instantly flasmmcross the mind. 
Here the rugged ‘ King of Borva,’ whose possessions 
embraced Aveird English and a kindNmart, ruled 
over the small community Avhich looked uuto him 
as its head. ‘ There ’s the house,’ remarks Chllum, 
pointing to a neat cottage on the brow of the nK 
