Where the mighty numbers went to when they left for the south is not
accurately stated, and, of course, this will now never be known, but
they were found to continue in flocks in Virginia, Kentucky and even
Tennessee.
... In the latter part of April or early May the birds began nesting.
The nest building beginning as soon as the birds had selected a woods
for a rookery, the scene was one of great activity. Birds were flying
in every direction in search of twigs for their platform nests, and it
did seem that each pair was intent on securing materials at a distance
from the structure. Many twigs were dropped in flying, or at the nest,
and these were never reclaimed by their bearers, but were often picked
up by other birds from another part of the rookery. This peculiarity in
so many species of birds in nest building I could never understand.
It takes a pair of pigeons from four to six days to complete a nest,
and any basketmaker could do a hundred per cent. better job with the
same materials in a couple of hours. In the nest of the pigeon, man
could certainly give the birds points for their benefit, for it is one
of the most shiftless structures placed in trees that I have met with.
The nest is always composed of slender dead twigs, so far as I have
observed, or ever learned from others, and in comparison, though
smaller, much resembles some of the heron's structures. In some nests
I have observed the materials are so loosely put together that the egg
or young bird can be seen through the latticed bottom. In fact, it has
been my custom to always thus examine the nests before climbing the
tree.
The platform structures vary in diameter from six to twelve inches or
more, differing in size according to the length of the sticks, but
generally are about nine or ten inches across. An acquaintance of mine
had tamed some wild birds, which at last bred regularly in captivity.
These birds were well supplied with an abundance of material for their
nests and always selected in confinement such as described above, and
making a nest about nine inches in diameter.
The breeding places are generally found in oak woods, but the great
nesting sites in Michigan were often in timbered lands, I am informed.
The height of the nest varies. It may be as low as six feet or all of
sixty-five feet from the ground.
Passenger Pigeons are always gregarious when unmolested, and hundreds
of thousands sometimes breed in a neighborhood at one time. It is
impossible to say how many nests were the most found in one tree, but
there are authenticated instances of a hundred. One man, on whose
veracity I rely, informs me that he counted 110 nests in one tree in
Emmett County, the lower peninsula. Still this may not be correct, for
we all know how easy it is to be deceived in correctly counting and
keeping record of even the branches of a tree, and when these limbs are
occupied by nests it is certainly doubly difficult, and the tendency
to count the same nests twice is increased.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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