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TGIE 






ith the Band-Tailed Pigeons 
In the Santa Rosa Mountains 
By W. B. MERSHON, Author of “The Passenger Pigeon.” 
The 
fortably warm, and the desert dust was blow- 
Ir was early in March. day was com- 
ing and filling the usual cracks and crevices at 
Douglas, Arizona. All morning we had been 
busy inspecting the two great smelting plants 
back at the car, helping our- 
there and 
selves to the luncheon from the dining room 
were 
table, when the subject of pigeons was men- 
tioned. 
Harrington, who had come from Bisbee that 
morning to help pilot us through these great 
copper producers, spoke up: 
“You should take a couple of days and go 
pigeon shooting with me.” 
“What kind of pigeons?” 
“Why, of course, the old-fashioned kind that 
we used to have back East, the big blue pigeon, 
twice the size of the dove.” 
“Are you sure they are the same pigeons 
that we used to have East, the old-fashioned 
pigeons?’ 
“Of course I am; wasn’t I born and brought 
up in Michigan? And while the pigeons were 
about gone before I was big enough to shoot, 
I surely believe these to be the passenger 
pigeons.” 
I had just presented my friend Harrington 
with a copy of “The Passenger Pigeon,” one of 
the first copies I had within a few days received 
from the publisher, and this was the inspiration 
for the beginning of my determination to see 
and have a band-tailed pigeon, and prove, once 
for all and 
that they were not, after all, the same as our 
old 
showed 
time, to these doubters enthusiasts 
days. I 
had 
colored 
pigeon of by-gone 
the 
conversation 
passenger 
Harrington and friend who 
the the 
plates in the pigeon book, of both these birds, 
and their attention to the fact that the 
had yellow feet and the 
Harrington con- 
cluded that the pigeons he meant had red feet, 
taken part in 
called 
band-tailed pigeon 
passenger pigeon red ones. 
and that he was certain he could take me to 
within a thirty-mile drive where there were 
pigeons with red feet, too. The tail did not 
look quite so long on his blue pigeons as the 
picture in the book of the passenger pigeon, but 
the the band-tailed 
pigeon he did not quite recognize as his blue 
pigeon of Arizona and Mexico. 
found that it 
go rd a 
excellent reproduction of 
Later on, how- 
ever, we was a most excellent 
likeness, as reproduction in color of 

the band-tailed pigeon as any artist could pos- 
sibly produce. 
I did not have time while at Bisbee to even 
think of a trip after but a 
few days after finishing my business there, and 
while at Cananea, Mexico, the subject came up 
Mr. Talbot, an old Easterner and an 
ardent sportsman, knew where there were acres 
taking pigeons, 
again. 
and he supposed they were the 
same pigeons we used to have in the East. The 
Duluth was emphatic. ‘I have 
killed thousands of pigeons in my early days,” 
he said. “‘A hundred in a day thirty years ago, 
and even before that. 
ot pigeons, 
ex-mayor of 
I hunted pigeons regu- 
larly, and I have also shot quantities of these 
pigeons here in Mexico, and know they are 
the same bird.” 
‘He wavered a little bit upon examining the 
pigeons in the book and finally concluded that 
he wasn’t mistaken, and if he was, he wasn’t 
going to own up. I had heard this story so 
many times in magazines and 

yapers that I was 
curious to know what the mystery was that oc- 
casioned what to me I was certain was a mis- 
take in identification. At Cananea Talbot said 
that within thirty miles—and thirty miles 
seemed to be rather a convenient distance—the 
pigeons were in large numbers, that they were 
their north and had 
the immediate vicinity of 
Cananea, but in a week or two would be passing 
to the northward. 
I went to 
gradually 
not 
working way 
yet reached 
down to 
over the 
was stirred 
coming in 
the words 
of George King, “Say, I want to tell you some- 
thing.” 
and settled 
had gotten 
Thursday evening I 
California 
peace and quiet, and 
pigeon idea. 
up again by my friend, Charlie D., 
to the Maryland and remarking in 
His eyes stuck out almost as much as 
“T have been 
to Riverside and have seen two pigeons in a 
drug store window, and, by Jeffrey! they look 
to me to be the same pigeons we used to have 
back East; and yet they don’t seem just the 
George King’s when he said it. 
same. According to my recollection, they are 
the same size, same shape and the same color, 
but the tail don’t look just long enough.” 
This made after submit- 
ting to a severe cross-examination by me. 
At any rate, to make a long story short, he 
had gone in and become acquainted with the 
owner of the two birds and had been told they 
was an admission 

were simply in millions, that he had been down 
a day or two béfore and had killed over seventy 
in one day, ete., and Charlie immediately came 
back from Riverside and stumped me, and 
dared me to go with him on a trip into the 
mountains for these self-same birds. I had no 
gun, ammunition, or shooting toggery, but he 
had a duplicate in the little bungalow where he 
had been housekeeping all winter, and it was 
then and there agreed, notwithstanding that it 
had been raining for three or four days and 
looked as though it might rain for three or 
four hundred days more, and unless sickness, 
death or a broken leg intervened, we would on 
Sunday afternoon pile into his big automobile 
and get as far as Riverside that night. All 
plans were made and we settled down to a good 
afternoon of golf and quiet. 
By Saturday it was still raining, it had turned 
cold, and the children had taken cold and were 
coughing badly, so it did not take very much 
urging to put off the trip until Monday morn- 
ing. We hoped for a pleasant day, but it was 
still pouring on Monday morning. However, we 
decided to go on and we piled into the automo- 
bile at seven-thirty, and just three hours and ten 
minutes later pulled up at the Glenwood at 
Riverside. 
The mutual friend with whom we had com- 
municated by telegraph to make arrangements 
for a continuation of our trip, furnishing guide. 
etc., had supposed that the weather conditions 
were such that no sane man would stir out of 
doors that day. Consequently a commission 
was promptly convened to determine our 
sanity, but we were there and going shooting, 
but had to give up the automobile feature of it. 
owing to the reports of several washouts on 
the road between Riverside and Temecula. 
There a train scheduled to leave for the 
South at 3:50 that afternoon, and we straight- 
way determined that it was useless for us to 
try to do any shooting that day, but we could 
get down to the end of the road in time to 
make our arrangements for the next day, and 
with the hope that it would prove a pleasant 
day and the rain storm would be over. 
Charlie concluded to do some preliminary 
scouting by long distance telephone, and he re- 
quested a good friend at Riverside to telephone 
to Temecula for two with bath. The 
telephone almost went off the hooks at this re- 
Was 
rooms 




