Oct. 19, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
495 
The Passenger Pigeon Award. 
Metcalf, Mass., Sept. 8 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: I have been told that you or some of 
your correspondents have offered a large sum 
for a wild pigeon, and that many have been sent 
you, but have proved to be wild doves. 
I do not remember the wild pigeon. My 
farmer says he remembers them well, and that 
it is a wild pigeon that is nesting in one of my 
trees. He is sure about it. 
I have this morning tried to get a photo¬ 
graph of the squab in the nest, the mother being 
away at the time. I shall try to get the mother 
if I can be quick enough with the camera. There 
were two eggs in the nest, but only one has 
hatched. 
Let me know please what your offer is. The 
squab could be secured and probably the mother 
also. J. P. R. 
[No reward so far as we know has ever 
been offered for a wild pigeon. The statement 
made to our correspondent is undoubtedly a mis¬ 
understanding of the plan to save the passenger 
pigeon originated by Dr. C. F. Plodge, of Wor¬ 
cester, Mass. 
At a meeting of the American Ornithologists’ 
Union several years ago, Dr. Hodge pointed out 
that the passenger pigeon was probably on the 
verge of extinction, and suggested—what was of 
course obvious enough—that what is desired is 
not killed specimens of the passenger pigeon, but 
protection for those still alive. He suggested 
that it would be well to make it an object for 
anyone seeing passenger pigeons to preserve 
rather than to kill them, and that this might be 
done by offering a reward for an undisturbed 
nest of the bird. After the suggestion had been 
made, it seemed odd that no one had thought of 
this before. 
The first step toward carrying out this plan 
was the offer of Col. Anthony R. Ivuser, of a 
prize of $,300 for first information of a nest¬ 
ing pair of wild passenger pigeons, undisturbed. 
Soon other men came forward, offering substan¬ 
tial rewards with various conditions attached. 
Colonel Kuser offered $300 for the first nesting 
and John Lewis Childs $700—$1,000 for the first 
confirmed report of an undisturbed nesting. The 
total amount of the offering up to the spring of 
1910 was about $3,800. 
All through that spring reports of nests of 
passenger pigeons kept coming in, but investiga¬ 
tion showed that none of these nests were those 
of passenger pigeons and almost all were wild 
doves. Dr Hodge, Forest and Stream, the 
Audubon Society and many of the newspapers 
worked hard, trying to make the public under¬ 
stand the difference between the wild dove— 
otherwise called mourning dove or turtle dove— 
and the passenger pigeon. These well intentioned 
efforts were not very successful. Most of the 
nests were demonstrated to be those of mourning 
doves, and we presume the nest reported by our 
correspondent is a dove’s nest. 
The passenger pigeon is believed to lay only 
a single egg. The mourning dove usually lays 
two. In Forest and Stream of April 23, 1910, 
Vol. LXXIV., page 651, will be found a cut of 
a mourning dove’s nest showing two eggs of the 
mourning dove and a white disk representing a 
passenger pigeon's egg. Both eggs are reduced 
one-half; in other words, the relative size of the 
two eggs is shown. 
After two years of fruitless offer of awards, 
without a particle of encouragement the prizes 
offered by those interested in this matter were 
withdrawn. It is not possible to say that the 
passenger pigeon is actually extinct, but there 
seems little reason to hope that any considerable 
number of them are left alive. —Editor.] 
Sparrows and Wild Pigeons. 
BY THEODORE GORDON. 
Reports of losses through the depredations 
of English sparrows have been numerous this 
year, as they have appeared in multitudes in 
many places. Kitchen gardens have been ruined 
and the birds seemed to be possessed of almost 
omnivorous appetites. There is no doubt that 
losses in the aggregate have been very consider¬ 
able and that sparrows may become a great nuis¬ 
ance. When the birds are so numerous, shoot¬ 
ing them seems to produce but little impression 
upon them. Poisoned grain or other food is a 
dangerous remedy and the common figure of 
four trap is not effective. I have had several 
conversations with an old-time wild pigeon trap¬ 
per, one of the most successful and expert of 
his day, and he is confident that with his regular 
pigeon nets he could capture great quantities of 
sparrows. These nets are double; that is, spring 
together from opposite directions and are four¬ 
teen by forty feet each, so that when sprung 
they cover a piece of ground twenty-eight feet 
wide by eighty feet long. The bait would con¬ 
sist of some favorite sparrow food and each of 
the places selected would be strewn with this for 
several days before the trap was used. Suitable 
hiding places for the trapper would be made. 
In trapping wild pigeons a decoy bird was al¬ 
ways kept and was thrown into the air to attract 
the attention of flocks flying past. Pigeon net- 
ters often suffered much annoyance from bullet 
hawks and other of the small, swift-flying birds 
of prey. These hawks would take up their posi¬ 
tions in trees within easy flight of baited spots 
and nets, ready to pounce upon any pigeons 
that appeared and the birds would not come in. 
A first rate trapper would catch and kill many 
of these hawks by luring them with his decoy 
and springing his nets when they made their 
arrow-like flight for the latter. The nets lay 
flat upon the ground and gave no warning when 
properly worked. A great many hawks ap¬ 
peared at pigeon time in spring and fall, and 
no doubt followed the migrating flocks. 
The trappers hated the shotgun brigades 
who established themselves on ridges or hills, 
in open spaces, in the line of flight. The gun¬ 
ners blazed away at each flock of pigeons as it 
passed, and this practice made the birds wild 
and difficult to decoy. The sudden complete dis¬ 
appearance of the wild pigeon cannot have been 
entirely due to man. They were killed at all 
times and murdered by thousands or captured 
alive on the breeding grounds. The habit of 
nesting together in vast multitudes was an un¬ 
fortunate trait of the pigeons, as hundreds of 
gunners and trappers were attracted to the big 
‘roosts.” Dead birds were shipped in barrels 
and many live ones in coops. I distrust my 
recollection of the exact figures, but pigeons were 
often forwarded to the large cities in carloads 
from shipping points nearest the nesting grounds. 
In old times the breasts were sometimes cut off 
and salted for consumption in winter. 
In spite of all this there were many pigeons 
the year before they became practically extinct. 
Reports of hurricanes, cyclones or great storms 
and the finding of multitudes of pigeons on the 
Great Lakes and even on the Gulf of Mexico 
have been heard. An epidemic disease of some 
kind may have attacked the birds, and we all 
know what terrible ravages such complaints make 
among game birds and animals. It is a sad busi¬ 
ness, but they are gone. We will never see the 
blue flocks dashing northward in early spring 
or when wending their way to summer lands in 
September or early October. They did not seem 
to be in such a hurry in the autumn; the young 
birds were with them, and they loved beechnuts 
and acorns. It is said that birds killed in 
Pennsylvania sometimes had Carolina rice in 
their crops undigested, but my experience with 
pigeons—that is, shooting them—was mostly in 
the autumn in New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois 
and Wisconsin. To the youthful gunner the 
pigeon was great game and a few of these fine 
birds made quite a heavy bag. I never killed 
more than three at one shot and never saw more 
than a few thousands in one day passing over. 
1 he vast flights that were said to have obscured 
the sun were a thing of the past when I was a 
small boy. 
Value of Birds on the Farm. 
California Fish and Game Commission. 
In his warfare against rodent pests, in or¬ 
chard, garden and field, the birds of prey are 
of special value to the farmer in the fact that 
they labor both day and night. While the hawks 
hunt by day, the work of the owls is carried on 
chiefly at night, so the work of the one supple¬ 
ments that of the other. 
I he one outlawed member of the owl family 
is the great horned owl. The economic stand¬ 
ing of this bird seems to depend largely on 
locality. In regions where rodents are plenti¬ 
ful, it feeds chiefly on them, but when this kind 
of food is not available, it then attacks birds 
as well as making frequent inroads on domestic 
fowl. It has been suggested that “if farmers 
would shut up their chickens at night instead 
of allowing them to roost in trees and other ex¬ 
posed places, the principal damage done by this 
bird would be prevented.” 
While the great horned owl is of doubtful 
utility, the barn owl, or monkey-faced owl, as it 
is commonly called, stands out pre-eminently as 
a friend of the farmer. While pigeons are some¬ 
times driven from coops by these birds, they are 
seldom destroyed. 
The barn owl is especially useful during the 
nesting season, sixteen mice, three gophers, a 
ground squirrel and a good-sized rat being fed 
to one nestful of birds in about half an hour. 
(Continued on page 508.) 
