Jan. 12, 1907.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
55 
The Passenger Pigeons. 
New York City, Jan. 4. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: The following remarks on wild pigeons 
are from notes made by the writer during a 
conversation with Mr. Thomas Hand, of 
Netherwood, N. J., on Dec. 30, last. Mr. Hand 
was engaged in trapping passenger pigeons for 
a long time prior to their sudden disappearance. 
He is not one who exaggerates, but all his 
statements are made in a quiet, unassuming 
manner that is very convincing: 
Sometimes he and others in his district 
shipped no barrels of pigeons a day for sixty 
to seventy days running, to New York. 1 hese 
came from Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wis¬ 
consin and Minnesota. 
T-he hens laid but one egg at each nesting 
Mr. Hand saw some Hocks of wild pigeons 
fifteen to twenty years ago in Minnesota. The 
flight always occupied two or three days, and 
the birds all came at one time, none straggling 
along after—that is. no particular quantities. 
The birds in their flight flew very high up, so 
that they looked like very small batches indi¬ 
vidually—clear out of gunshot. 
The accepted reason for their extermination 
in that part of the country was a tremendous 
fog that lasted about four days, and the birds 
in taking their regular course across Lake Erie 
became bewildered and were finally lost and 
drowned in the lake. The natives on the 
Canadian side said they were washed up on the 
shore in “wind-rows,” so that they had to go 
from the villages and bury them. When Mr. 
Hand was asked how many were lost in this 
catastrophe, he stated that there could be no 
fair estimate, but his opinion was that there 
were millions of tons of these birds destroyed. 
When the trappers 'set their nets for these 
birds—which was nearly always near their nest¬ 
ing or roosting place—in the mornings they 
caught what was called the “Tom ’ flight, indi¬ 
cating the male birds. In the afternoon the 
hens would come off the nests, and all the buds 
caught at that time of day were hens. 
At one time in a certain locality the pigeons 
had eaten up all the spring wheat, and the 
trappers found that they were feeding after that 
on small caterpillars or inch worms, finding 
their crops full of them. In consequence of this, 
as the worms eaten decomposed quickly, and for 
the reason that people would not purchase them 
after finding what they had fed on. the trappers 
had to pull the crops out of each bird before 
shipping. The old birds would leave the young 
one in its nest when resuming the flight, at a 
certain period, with the result that the helpless 
young were preyed upon to a tremendous ex¬ 
tent bv the hawks, owls and crows. 
Shelby, Mich., was generally the center of 
the biggest flight. 
The highest price Mr. Hand ever got for 
these birds was $4 a dozen when there was a 
good demand for them, and from that down to 
fifteen cents a dozen. He shipped nearly all 
of the birds that he sent to New York to Mr. 
N. Durham, New York city. 
Two enterprising fellows from Boston got 
an idea that they could buy all the live birds 
that came to Shelby, put them in inclosures, 
feed them and ship them to the different mar¬ 
kets, as “corn fed” birds and thereby get a very 
much enlarged figure for them. So, with this 
in view, they built a series of inclosures in the 
center of the town in some open lots, Shelby 
being then but a village, and they took all the 
live "birds that were brought to them, paying 
twelve cents a dozen for them. Soon, however, 
as many of the birds died and could not be 
reached without considerable destruction to the 
live birds that hardly had moving room in 
these inclosures, the'stench became very great, 
with the result that some doctor indicated that 
one or two local cases of sickness resulted 
therefrom, the final outcome being that the 
natives went there one night and destroyed all 
the inclosures, liberating an estimated number 
of 6co,coo birds. 
Mr. Hand thinks that the great disaster to 
the birds in the fog occurred in the late 
seventies, as he was trapping them in 1876, and 
subsequent to that time, after which they all 
disappeared. The pigeons at that time were 
near Bellefontaine, and crossed the lake near 
Ashtabula, Ohio. A. Clinton Wilmerding. 
Hingham, Mass., Dec. 31.— Editor Forest and 
Stream: Late last May (1906) two_ wild 
pigeons ( Ectopistes migratorius ) appeared in my 
woodlot in Hingham, Mass., and fed in the 
field adjoining. Several times I saw them; once 
I am pretty sure that a third one was with them, 
though the pair had disappeared in the woods 
when the- odd one flew over. Then they went 
away. In August, however, the field was sown 
to clover and timothy, and the pigeons appeared 
again, this time a flock of seven or eight. They 
stayed about, feeding on the seed, especially 
upon sOme buckwheat that had ripened and 
fallen before the plowing for more than a week. 
I got within a hundred yards of them a dozen 
times with my bird glasses. Unfortunately, I 
have no camera. Had I realized the doubt in 
my sense of sight (and my veracity) that such 
a report as this would naturally create, I should 
have summoned one of your staff and had the 
birds photographed. 
“How do you know,” asked Mr. C. H. Ames, 
“that they were not doves?’’ My reply was that 
all my early life was spent in South Jersey, 
where I was as familiar with the turtle dove as 
with a crow. I was so certain of my discovery 
that no thought of doubting my eyes occurred 
to me, though that is no proof that I saw 
pigeons. I am so certain, however, that a small 
flock of seven or eight passenger pigeons went 
on their way south, that I am sending you this 
for publication. 
I believe we shall again see the long mar¬ 
velous flocks that once were the wonder of the 
bird world. Dallas Lore Sharp. 
New York Fish and Game Report. 
The eighth and ninth reports of the New 
York Forest, Fish and Game Commission, 
covering the years 1902 and 1903, have just been 
received. The large volume is handsome and 
exceedingly interesting. 
As usual, the reports for the two years in¬ 
clude those of the superintendent of forests, 
the secretary of the Commission, the fish 
hatchery officials, the chief game protector and 
the superintendent of shell fisheries. Besides 
these, there are a number of papers on special 
subjects, which are of unusual interest. 
The efforts to stock the Adirondacks with 
moose and elk are reported to be succeeding. 
Mongolian pheasants are being reared and dis¬ 
tributed to applicants, but details are not given. 
There are a few beaver in the Adirondacks— 
enough, if they should be protected, to stock 
the whole region. 
Among the special articles of great interest 
are The Cultivated Forests of Europe, by A. 
Knechtel; Forest Nurseries and Nursery 
Methods in Europe, by William F. Fox; Birds 
as Conservators of the Forests, by Dr. F. E. 
L. Beal; Fishes and Fishing in the Adirondacks, 
by A. Tudd Northrup: The Albino Brook 
Trout, by Clifford R. Pettis, F. E.; Descrip¬ 
tions of Fishes, by Dr. Tarleton H. Bean; 
Notes on Adirondack Mammals, by Madison 
Grant; The Squirrels and Other Rodents of 
Adirondacks, by Frederick C. Paulmier; The 
Wild Fowl of the St. Lawrence, by J. H. Dur¬ 
ham; A Forest Working Plan, by the United 
States Bureau of Forestry. All of these are 
interesting, and all of them are illustrated, for 
the most part in colors, and in several of them 
the colored illustrations are of extraordinary 
beauty. 
Dr. Beal is well known as an economic 
ornithologist, who has long been connected 
with the Biological Survey. Of late years an 
examination of the stomachs of birds has en¬ 
abled us to learn exactly what the insects are 
on which birds feed, and how far these in¬ 
sects are harmful to vegetation. We are thus 
given a reasonably exact measure of the use¬ 
fulness to man of any bird on which a suffi¬ 
cient series of observations have been made. 
In his paper on Birds as Conservators of the 
Forest, Dr. Beal discusses a number of groups 
of insect-eating birds. Important among these 
are the woodpeckers, the titmice, the creep¬ 
ers, the kinglets, the vireos and the wood warb¬ 
lers. But besides these there are a multitude 
of other birds, ali of which do their part. But, 
after all, from the forester’s point of view, the 
most useful are those which, either as winter 
residents or as migrants in* spring and fall, 
spend much of their time searching over the 
trees and destroying the eggs and immature 
insects \yhich lie hidden in the crevices of the 
bark or among the branches. 
While nine-tenths of the work of any bird 
may be beneficial, one tenth may be harmful, 
yet the species must of course receive credit 
for the balance in its favor. Some birds, such 
as the sapsucker, are thought to do consider¬ 
able harm, but the good that he does probably 
far outweighs the evil. Other familiar wood¬ 
peckers of our northern forests—among them 
the three-toed species, which only come down 
from the north in the severest winter weather 
-—are useful birds and it were.to be wished that 
they stayed longer with us. They live almost 
wholly on insect food, of which four-fifths is 
composed of harmful borers. Most outdoor 
men are familiar with the flicker’s fondness 
for ants—insects which prey on the trees and 
do great damage. 
Outside the groups already named, which 
are constant searchers after insects and their 
eggs, the cuckoos tear up caterpillars’ nests 
and devour the worms, as do also both the 
orioles and the robins. The bluejay, the 
crow and many of the finches do a vast work 
in destroying the hordes of insects that are 
constantly at work preying on the forests. 
Nor are the insect-eating birds alone in the 
beneficial work which they do for the forests. 
The smaller mammals, such as mice, woodrats 
and rabbits, though they do not harm the 
grown trees, do destroy young ones, and in 
forest nurseries often cause great loss. Many 
years ago Dr. A. K. Fisher’s work demon¬ 
strated that the hawks and owls keep down 
these injurious animals, and are thus worthy 
of protection. 
The illustrations for this chapter were drawn 
by Mr. Louis Agassiz Fuertes, and are re¬ 
markably beautiful and life-like pictures of the 
species represented. Dr. Bean’s descriptions of 
fishes are illustrated by handsome plates drawn 
by Denton. 
A paper of peculiar interest is that on Ad¬ 
irondack Mammals, by Mr. Madison Grant, 
the secretary of the Zoological Society. The 
paper is an interesting one, having especial 
reference to the fur-bearers, but mentioning 
as well a number of ungulates and rodents. 
Mr. Grant quotes from an old account of the 
