Passenger Pigeon Investigaiion. 
Clark University, Worcester, Mass., Aug. 15. 
—All the awards are still to be won. This does 
not mean that we are certain no nestings of the 
passenger pigeon have been 
found, but that no finder has 
fulfilled the simple conditions 
of the contest. I must have re¬ 
ceived nearly one hundred re¬ 
ports of pigeon nestings, be¬ 
sides the several thousands of 
letters of information and in¬ 
quiry. On receipt of a report, 
I mail the leaflet practically 
shouting over to my inform¬ 
ant: “Are you $5 sure?” Gen¬ 
erally I get the reply: “I beg 
your pardon, my birds, I find, 
are mourning doves.” A num¬ 
ber of very insistent reports 
have come from the Far West, 
■and some have been sent in 
from Brazil, Chili and Argen¬ 
tina. All the Pacific Coast and 
Rocky Mountain findings have 
proved to fie band-tailed 
pigeons or other Pacific 
species. The work of this sea¬ 
son, I think, definitely settles 
all the newspaper stories about 
the passenger pigeon having 
been driven west, and that it 
is now living in the mountains 
or on various Pacific islands 
in large numbers. Professor 
Whitman—whose co-operation 
has been of incalculable value 
to the investigation from the 
1 eginning—writes me that he 
has had the best collectors in 
South America working for 
him, and that there is not a 
scrap of evidence that a 
passenger pigeon has ever been 
seen on that continent. 
This narrows the problem 
down to eastern North Amer¬ 
ica—the known range of the 
species. Here Ontario has been 
the storm center, with New 
York State a close second 
throughout the season. A 
good deal of evidence of 
pigeons seen elsewhere has also 
ben received. After some of 
those from Ontario, possibly 
the most encouraging report 
from anywhere in the United 
States comes from Pennsyl¬ 
vania. My informant claims to have located two 
flocks of pigeons in the heavy timber, and that 
he found two nests in the same tree. He* did 
not know of the rewards at the time. After 
casually telling of his find, he learned of the re¬ 
wards, but, on revisiting the place, found the 
nests deserted. I have written him requesting 
that he send me the nests, but my letter has been 
returned unopened, and I am now trying to 
reach him at another address. There are two 
similar cases in Ontario, now being followed up 
by a local ornithologist. 
UPPER SPECIMEN, PASSENGER PIGEON. 
LOWER SPECIMEN, MOURNING DOVE, FREQUENTLY MISTAKEN FOR THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
(From “The Passenger Pigeon,” by W. P>. Mershon.) 
The season’s experiences form a sickeningly 
funny commentary on our education and our 
general knowledge of American natural history. 
I received a sedate, cultured report saying that 
my informant had watched the building of the 
nest, and that the bird was then brooding on two 
eggs—in the heart of Boston City! Another re¬ 
port came from some one in Bloom & Co.’s 
Sixty-seventh street and Second avenue, New 
York city: “There are many wild pigeons 
around here and their nests are plainly to be 
seen in the cornices of the buildings. They must 
be the birds you want. No¬ 
body feeds them, and I am sure 
they are wild pigeons.” An¬ 
other wishes to know how 
much reward there is for a 
rabbit with a long tail. 
One evening a frantic report 
came in by telephone from 
Waltham, Mass. The man 
agreed to pay $5 and all ex¬ 
penses if the birds did not 
prove to'be passenger pigeons. 
I immediately telephoned Dr. 
Field, of the Massachusetts 
Commission of Fisheries and 
Game, and he dropped all his 
other work to go over to 
Waltham and look up the mat¬ 
ter personally. The man took 
him into some woods, but was 
unable to show him either 
birds or nests- of any kind. 
One morning’s mail brought 
me a letter from central New 
York containing a post office 
order for $5. One nest was 
described in a maple about ten 
feet from the ground, and 
there was another nest in a 
large willow at least twenty- 
five feet up. The letter said that 
the squabs were ready to fly, 
and that I must come quick if 
I wished to find them in the 
nest. I pictured the edge of a 
woods with maple trees and a 
brook (willows). Telegraph¬ 
ing my informant to meet the 
7 :qo train the next morning, I 
rode all night, without sleeper, 
on account of numerous 
changes, and stepped into his 
buggy as the train pulled into 
Cazenovia, N. Y. We drove 
two miles, found the nest 
empty in the maple—one of a 
row planted along the public 
highway—about ten feet high, 
as stated ; also the nest in the 
willow—a lone line tree be¬ 
tween pasture fields not more 
than about twelve feet from 
the ground. The man wrote 
me that he had not heard the 
birds “coo,” “like mourning 
doves.” We found the squabs in the pasture 
near the nest, heard the old birds “coo,” caught 
the first train for Worcester, and I was home that 
evening. They were mourning doves, of course. 
The man had written that there were two squabs 
in the nest, and I was strongly tempted to quote 
Professor Whitman to him, to the effect thai 
