The pigeons continued to visit us in great abundance for a number of
years, although there would be an occasional season when there would
not be so many. As the years rolled by they became fewer in number
until in the fall of 1876, when I saw my last Passenger Pigeons (a
small flock of ten or fifteen), I tried hard to procure some for my
cabinet, but failed.
One peculiar habit of the Passenger Pigeons was that during their
migrations, should they alight and their crops were filled with
inferior food, they would vomit it up in order to fill themselves with
something better should they find it.
* * * * *
F. N. Lawrence stated in _Forest and Stream_ of February 18, 1899,
that when a boy, in the late forties, he spent most of his time on
his grandfather's country seat at Manhattanville, on the North River.
In those years the wild pigeon flew south on both sides of the North
River by the thousands in the fall, and in lesser numbers flew north in
the spring.
He also wrote: "These migrations occurred with the utmost regularity.
The first easterly storm after September 1st, clearing up with a strong
northwest wind, was as surely followed by a flight of wild pigeons as
the sun was to rise. During such storms, I have passed many a sleepless
night watching to catch the first change of wind, and when it veered
northwest, daybreak found me on the river bank watching for the flight
that never failed. Ah! how my heart jumped as flock after flock of wild
pigeons came flying over Fort Washington like small clouds. I have
shot a great many of them, but alas, like the buffalo, they are almost
exterminated."
* * * * *
I have run across what was evidently my first diary, dated 1872, when I
was fourteen years old. I make the following extracts from it:
April 6th. "Pigeon flew this morning."
Then on April 8th I mention 9 pigeons shot in the afternoon by my
father, and say "they flew very thick in the morning."
The record, like most boys' diaries, seems to have many skips, for the
next item about pigeons is on the 11th of May, saying that I shot 2
that day and on the 1st of June I mention that I killed 3 pigeons in
the morning, "the most I ever have shot at one time."
My marksmanship seems to have improved after that, for on the 7th
of June I mention shooting 7, and on the 8th 8 (I used to go every
morning), and on the 10th I got 8 again and on the 11th 12, and so on
with varying success. On June 11 I mention that the young ones were
beginning to fly plentifully.
W. B. M.
Extract from a letter written by the late Alexander McDougall of
Duluth, February 8, 1905:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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