The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1899-02-02
FEW WILD PIGEONS LEFT.


full within the borders of Pennsylvania
and other eastern states, is doomed.
Like the buffalo, its extinction is only
the matter of a few years. Even now
there are a few of these birds frequent
ing places close to our large cities,
where score of years ago millions
nestled and reared their young. The
breeding range of the passenger pigeon
today is almost wholly in the sparseIy~
settled wooded regions that form our
extreme northern border, from northern
Maine westward to northern Minnesota,
along the Michigan peninsula, in the
central parts of the Dominion of Cana
da and as far north as the shores of
Iiudson's bay. If they have been breed
ang extensively in these remote corners
of the country IN recent years man has
no knowledge of it Isolated and scat
tered pairs still find a home in the New
england states, in northern New York
and Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Michi-
gan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and, further
south, in Kentucky and eastern Tennes-
see. The enormous pigeon roOsts of by
gone days, If they exist, are in the i'm
penetrable wilderness of the north.
The determination of the passenger
pigeon has progressed even more rap
idly than did that of the American
bison. The latters dead were counted
by the tens of thousands; the wild pig
cons by the millions. Eight or ten
years ago small colonies of wild pigeons
frequented the beech woods in the
northern counties of Pennsylvania and
southern counties of New York. In the
spring of 1888 a colony of 100 pairs were
found breeding along the shores of a
small creek in the upper end of Potter
county, Pa. This was the last roost
reported from the state. Single pairs,
however, breed in Potter, Pike and Mon
roe counties, Pa, even yet
In the counties of Cumberland, Cape
May and Atlantic, in southern New
Jersey, few scattered pairs have been
breeding in recent years. The stories
told by old settlers in the sparsely set,
tied counties of Pennsylvania of the big
wild pigeon rOOStS they have witnessed
are interesting. The early spring of
1869 brought what was probably the
largest nesting that ever took place
within the borders of that state. Me-
hoopany creek, Wyoming county, was
the scene of the rooSt, which was seven
miles long and three miles wide OF
the thousands of trees adjacent to the
shores of the creek, there was scarcely
one which did not contain at least one
nest, while some of them held half a
dozen nests. A conservative estimate
placed the number of pigeons in this
roost at not less than half a million.
Thousands of the birds were killed by
pot hunters and METERS, who shipped
them to the markets of the eastern
cities by the carload.
This Pennsylvania nesting. however
was a pigmy compared to that which
took place on the southern peninsula of
Michigan, about fifteen miles south of
the. Straits of Mackinac. in the early
spring of 1876. Late one afternoon the
wild pigeons began to arrive near Pc
tosky. It was a dismal March day.
The birds came in two bodies, one d.
rectly from the south by land, the other
following the east coast of Wisconsin,
until they reached Manitou island
when the great army of birds changed
their course and flew straight across
Lake Michigan. This latter body of
pigeons came in from the lake just be-
fore dark, and those who saw it say
that it was a compact mass of birds
fully six miles long and two miles wide.
f1TCf 1O,aLT IN tn f1ae
adjacent to Petosky was almost as
large.
With a foot of snow covering the
ground in the woods where the sun
could not reach it, but with the fields
bare. this monStrouS body of birds be-
gan building their nests. The colony ex-
tended its boundaries SO rapidly that it
soon spread over vast territory. This
nesting was twenty-nine miles long and
from three to five miles wide. From Pc
toSky for nine miles through hardwood
timber, then across a river swamp, and
then on through twenty miles of white
pine belt, did this throng settle Every
tree of any size through this stretch of
Twenty-Five miles contained a nest;
many of them a dozen nests. The noise
made by this countless mass of wild
pigeons was deafening. their combined
! clamor being easily distinguished three
miles away.
For six weeks the birds remained at
the Petosky nesting. During this time
several million birds were slain. Nearly
a thousand men waged a warfare of ex-
termination against the pigeons The
shipments of dead birds to the distant
city markets from Petoslxy and smaller
towns along the peninsula averaged
two carloads each day for fully one
month, but with all this slaughter it is
estimated that not one bird in thou
sand was taken. Owls and haws proved
upon both the old birds and the SQUADS
extent.
This Petosky nesting covered some
thing like 100000 acres of land The
number of dead birds sent by rail each
day was counted at 14,500, while an
equal number was shipped by water
This does not include 1850 live birds
sent away by METERS. In 40 days more
than 150O. 900 were slaughtered.
A man who was an eyewitness of
this great nesting declares that thous-
ands of squads were left dead in the
nests and thousands of dead and
wounded old birds were not secured
He roughly estimated that no less an
astounding number than 50,00O 900 pig
cons were sacrificed during the nesting
The meters who have done so much
to exterminate the American wild pig
con are becoming almost as scarce an
article as the birds themselves. The
METERS excuse for the non-appearance
of the birds in their former great num-
berS is that they have been driven into
the uninhabited regions north of the
great lakes, into British America This
theory may in part be true, but surely
the intense cold of the winters would
cause them to flock to warmer chimes.
In the warmer southern states few of
these birds are now to be seen. The
migratory seasons come and go, but the
wild pigeon is not counted among the
birds that take flight, north or south.
The last big flight known to naturalists
was that which took place in Michigan
in the spring of 1888.
According to men who witnessed the
flying of the pigeons that year, fully
quarter of million birds were on the
wing. The METERS were on the alert on