494 
FOREST AND STREAM 
April 19, 1913 
The Passenger Pigeon 
T he wild pigeon, or more properly the pas¬ 
senger pigeon, has been the subject of so 
much discussion in Forest and Stream 
that the writer tenders his contribution on that 
head with misgiving as to his ability to write 
as fluently on the subject as some who have 
preceded him in these columns. 
Having been born and lived until manhood 
in Southern Michigan, which place was ever 
favored with visits from the passenger pigeon, 
and being an observer of these birds and their 
habits, I feel able to write about the pigeons as 
I remember them. 
In early spring, often while the snow still 
covered the ground, the northward flight of 
pigeons commenced. A few warm days in suc¬ 
cession and the advance guard of the flight came 
in small flocks. Often they stopped to feed, 
seeking the places where hillsides with a south¬ 
ern exposure had been laid bare of snow by the 
sun. Perching in the trees on these hills the 
pigeons dropped to the ground to feed on the 
acorns, beechnuts, etc., which had been left from 
the previous fall. The advance flight did not 
remain long, but as soon as they had fed, sped 
northward in search of nesting places, going 
generally to the pine and hemlock timber, though 
often there were nestings in the hardwood, es¬ 
pecially on ridges covered with beech trees, these 
places being quite common in the country where 
the general growth was pine and hemlock. Fol¬ 
lowing closely in the wake of the pilot flight 
came the main army of the pigeons. Soon after 
daylight they began to fly north and continued 
to pass over until nearly noon, the majority of 
the flight of the day being over by the time the 
sun reached the meridian, though on cloudy or 
rainy days the birds often flew all day. On 
such da}'s the pigeons often alighted in large 
numbers, giving preference at such times to the 
dry trees, particularly to those which had been 
“girdled’’ in the process of clearing the land. 
In the oak openings the trees were oftfen girdled, 
the ground broken, and a crop of winter wheat 
sown and harvested while the girdled trees were 
standing. There was much wheat shelled and 
scattered on the ground by the old process of 
cradling the grain, and this afforded a fine op¬ 
portunity for the pigeons to feed when on their 
flight. The spring flight never lasted more than 
about a month altogether. The flight of the 
flock, the thousands and tens of thousands, which 
came in the spring, often passed over in three 
or four days. This flight was followed by 
smaller flocks, and these were often passing, a 
few at a time, for two or three weeks. 
There were but few nestings of the passen¬ 
ger pigeon in the settled country of Michigan. 
There was on two occasions that I remember a 
By C. A. BRYANT 
flock of several hundred which nested about a 
mile from where I lived. This was in the late 
6o’s. These pigeons nested on a ridge covered 
with beech timber, the ridge being flanked on 
one side by a lake surrounded by an almost im¬ 
passable marsh, and on the other side by a 
tamarack swamp. This, and a nesting of a small 
colony of not more than two or three hundred 
pigeons in a dense tamarack swamp, were the 
only nestings in our locality. 
The pigeons at the time of the spring flight 
were thin in flesh, though strong and vigorous, 
and much wilder and more difficult of approach 
than in the summer or fall. 
The pigeons began to appear again, after 
the spring flight, in our locality, about the ist 
of August, the first arrivals being small flocks 
of sometimes not more than a dozen birds. 
These made their appearance usually in the 
wheat stubble where they came to feed on the 
shelled wheat. As they increased in numbers, 
pigeons gathered in larger flocks, feeding in the 
stubble, and as the time for sowing fall wheat 
came on, they were present in great numbers. 
The country was, much of it, new; the ground 
rough, with many stumps and roots. This made 
the use of machinery for either sowing or har¬ 
vesting impossible, and when the wheat was 
sowed broadcast and the ground harrow^ed to 
cover the seed, there was much grain left un¬ 
covered. Then came the pigeons. Soon after 
it was fairly light they swarmed on the newly 
sown fields. Sometimes they alighted in trees 
near the edge of the cultivated ground and 
then dropped by dozens and hundreds on to the 
ground to feed. The exposed grain was soon 
picked up, and the pigeons in the van of the 
flock fared the best. Those in the rear w^ere 
continually rising and flying to the front, so that 
a flock of pigeons feeding on the ground had 
the appearance of rolling along the surface. 
When acorns and beechnuts were plenty, 
these birds fed to a great extent on the mast. 
Generally the year when acorns were plenty, 
there was a scarcity of beechnuts, and vice versa, 
though the writer has known of years when 
both beechnuts and acorns were plenty. When 
feeding on the mast, the pigeons generally went 
in smaller flocks than where they fed on the 
stubble fields or the newly sown wheat. One 
of their methods of feeding on acorns and beech¬ 
nuts was peculiar. After frost had fallen a time 
or two. the nuts and acorns became loosened 
from their holds, but did not fall at once. Then 
the pigeons would light on the outer ends of 
the limbs of the oak or beech, and seizing a 
beechnut or acorn in their bill, winnow back¬ 
ward with their wings and pull the nut from 
its fastening and swallow it whole. Strange as 
it may appear, I have seen seven white oak 
acorns, as large as the first joint of my little 
finger, taken from the crop of a passenger 
pigeon. These acorns had been swallowed en¬ 
tire, and would be digested in a 'few hours. I 
remember seeing eleven beechnuts taken from 
one pigeon’s crop. The passenger pigeon often 
fed on the red raspberries which grew in 
abundance on the land where pine had been cut 
off, and they were also fond of elderberries. 
The writer has shot pigeons whose crops and 
flesh around the crop was stained from eating 
berries. 
The pigeons were great drinkers, going to 
water as regularly as to feed. These birds do 
not drink like a hen by filling the mouth and 
then elevating the head when swallowing, but 
drink like an animal, by suction. The nature 
of the food on which the passenger pigeon sub¬ 
sisted, chiefly grain, nuts and acorns, made 
water a necessity to them, and the small ponds 
in the woods were favorite drinking places. 
The spring flight of pigeons did not seem 
to be at all dismayed at cold inclement weather 
when once they had reached the north, but in 
the fall the first sharp cold days usually started 
the pigeons south. 
I never netted any pigeons and consequently 
will not describe this method of taking these 
birds. My nearest approach to netting pigeons 
was when a boy about my own age and my¬ 
self were hunting on a cold rainy day in April. 
We saw a large number of pigeons alighting in 
the edge of a field. We approached the place 
under cover of the woods next to the field, and 
saw a place where the ground was blue with 
pigeons. We fired and the slaughter was great. 
On approaching the place where the birds had 
been so thick, we found we had fired into a 
netter’s “bed” or baited place to which the birds 
were decoyed. The netter was absent, although 
the net was set, and the trip rope was run from 
the net to the bough house where the netter hid 
when in operation of his trap. We gathered the 
slain and crippled pigeons, the result of our 
shots, and vanished. 
Shooting wild pigeons was great sport.. If 
the shooter wanted pigeons, he sought the birds 
at their feeding places where a shot into a 
large flock was often most disastrous to the 
pigeons and satisfactory to the hunter. I knew 
of forty-four pigeons being picked up as the 
result of one shot into a large flock feeding on 
newly sown, wheat. The shooter who sought 
the pigeons for sport had ample opportunity to 
exercise his skill when the birds were flying to 
and from the feeding places. The pigeons flew 
with the speed of the wind, and it took skill and 
(Continued on page 512.) 
