„ Auk, XV, April, 1898, pe./Sy-A'. 
The Passenger Pigeon (Eclofltstes migratonus') in Wisconsin and 
Nebraska. — Our records of this species during the past few years have 
referred, in most instances, to very small flocks and generally to pairs or 
individuals. In ‘ The Auk ’ for July, 1897, I recorded a flock of some fifty 
Pigeons from southern Missouri, but such a number has been very unus- 
ual. It is now very gratifying to be able to record still larger numbers 
and I am indebted to Mr. A. Fugleberg of Oshkosh, Wis., for the follow- 
ing letter of information, under date of Sept. 1, 1897 : “I live on the west 
shore of Lake Winnebago, Wis. About six o’clock on the morning of 
August 14, 1897, I saw a flock of Wild Pigeons flying over the bay from 
Fisherman’s Point to Stony Beach, and I assure you it reminded me of 
old times, from 1855 to 1880, when Pigeons were plentiful every day. 
So I dropped my work and stood watching them. This flock was fol- 
lowed by six more flocks, each containing about thirty-five to eighty 
Pigeons, except the last which only contained seven. All these flocks 
passed over within half an hour. One flock of some fifty birds flew 
within gun shot of me, the others all the way from one hundred to three 
hundred yards from where I stood.” Mr. Fugleberg is an old hunter and 
has had much experience with the Wild Pigeon. In a later letter dated 
Sept. 4, 1897, he writes : “ On Sept. 2, 1897, I was hunting Prairie Chick- 
ens near Lake Butte des Morts, Wis., where I met a friend who told me 
that a few days previous he had seen a flock of some twenty-five Wild 
Pigeons and that they were the first he had seen for years.” — This would 
appear as though these birds were instinctively working back to their old 
haunts, as the Winnebago region was once a favorite locality. We hope 
that Wisconsin will follow Michigan in making a close season on Wild 
Pigeons for ten years, and thus give them a chance to multiply and per- 
haps regain, in a measure, their former abundance. 
In ‘Forest and Stream,’ of Sept. 25, 1897, is a short notice of ‘Wild 
Pigeons in Nebraska,’ by ‘W. F. R.’ Through the kindness of the editor 
he placed me in correspondence with the observer, W. F. Rightmire, to 
whom I am indebted for the following details given in his letter of Nov. 
5, 1897 : “ I was driving along the highway north of Cook, Johnson 
County, Nebraska, on August 17, 1897. I came to the timber skirting 
the head stream of the Nemaha River, a tract of some forty acres of 
woodland lying along the course of the stream, upon both banks of the 
same, and there feeding on the ground or perched upon the trees were 
the Passenger Pigeons I wrote the note about. The flock contained 
seventy-five to one hundred birds. I did not frighten them, but as I 
drove along the road the feeding birds flew up and joined the others, 
and as soon as I had passed by they returned to the ground and con- 
tinued feeding. While I revisited the same locality, I failed to find the 
Pigeons. I am a native of Tompkins County, N. Y., and have often 
killed Wild Pigeons in their flights while a boy on the farm, helped to 
net them, and have hunted them in Pennsylvania, so that I readily 
knew the birds in question the moment I saw them.” I will here take 
occasion to state that in my record of the Missouri flock (Auk, July, 
1 ^97 5 P- 3 r h) the date on which they were seen (December 17, 1896) was, 
through error, omitted. — Ruthven Deane, Chicago , III. 
