"During our stay at Cadillac we saw them daily, sometimes singly, usually in pairs, never more than two together. Nearly every large tract of old growth mixed woods seemed to contain at least one pair. They appeared to be settled for the season, and we were convinced that they were preparing to breed. In fact, the oviduct of a female, killed May 10, contained an egg nearly ready for the shell. "At Oden we had a similar experience, although there were perhaps fewer pigeons there than about Cadillac. "On May 24, Mr. Dwight settled any possible question as to their breeding in scattered pairs, by finding a nest on which he distinctly saw a bird sitting. The following day I accompanied him to this nest, which was at least 50 feet above the ground, on the horizontal branch of a large hemlock, about 20 feet out from the trunk. As we approached the spot an adult male pigeon started from a tree near that on which the nest was placed, and a moment later a young bird, with stub tail and barely able to fly, fluttered feebly after it. This young pigeon was probably the bird seen the previous day on the nest, for on climbing to the latter, Mr. Dwight found it empty, but fouled with excrement, some of which was perfectly fresh. A thorough investigation of the surrounding woods, which were a hundred acres or more in extent, and composed chiefly of beeches, with a mixture of white pines and hemlocks of the largest size, convinced us that no other pigeons were nesting in them. "All the netters with whom we talked believe firmly that there are just as many pigeons in the West as there ever were. They say the birds have been driven from Michigan and the adjoining States, partly by persecution, and partly by the destruction of the forests, and have retreated to uninhabited regions, perhaps north of the Great Lakes in British North America. Doubtless there is some truth in this theory; for, that the pigeon is not, as has been asserted so often recently, on the verge of extinction, is shown by the flight which passed through Michigan in the Spring of 1888. This flight, according to the testimony of many reliable observers, was a large one, and the birds must have formed a nesting of considerable extent in some region so remote that no news of its presence reached the ears of the vigilant netters. Thus it is probable that enough Pigeons are left to restock the West, provided that laws sufficiently stringent to give them fair protection be at once enacted. The present laws of Michigan and Wisconsin are simply worse than useless, for, while they prohibit disturbing the birds _within_ the nesting, they allow unlimited netting only a few miles beyond its outskirts _during the entire breeding season_. The theory is, that they are so infinitely numerous that their ranks are not seriously thinned by catching a few millions of breeding birds in a summer, and that the only danger to be guarded against is