I believe that six wild pigeons were actually seen in the latter part
of April of 1905 near Vanderbilt, Mich., by this George King. I have
tested his honesty and truthfulness time and time again. He told me
he was seated in the branches of an apple tree when he saw six wild
pigeons alight in another tree near him. He kept perfectly still and
watched their movements for about thirty minutes. They flew from the
old tree in which they had alighted, underneath a beech tree and began
feeding on beech nuts from the ground. He says he heard them call and
they made the same old crowing call of the wild pigeon. He was close to
them; he is perfectly familiar with the dove and knows that these six
were Passenger Pigeons. King has for many years lived in the section
that formerly was the great pigeon nesting and feeding ground of
northern Michigan.
Michigan Agricultural College,
July 14, '05.
Dear Sir:--I have been away for the past three weeks and find your
letter of June 27 here on my return. The photographs sent you were
those of the Passenger Pigeon and the Carolina dove, the one of the two
birds being intended to show relative size and appearance. It was taken
from two of the best specimens in the museum, placed at exactly the
same distance from the camera so that the picture shows the comparative
size exactly. The birds being so similar in general appearance, the
smaller one looks as if it were further away than the larger, and
this, I think, shows clearly how impossible it is for the ordinary
observer to discriminate between these two species when seen separately
in the field. Of course a mixed flock would be a different proposition,
but so far as I know the two species never mingle, and, at least in
this State, it is an unusual thing to find the Carolina dove in large
compact flocks such as are characteristic of the Passenger Pigeon. In
several cases, however, during August and September I have seen large
scattered flocks of the Carolina dove which were feeding on weed seeds
and grain in open fields, and which when disturbed, gathered into small
bands of twenty to fifty each and flew and perched very much like
Passenger Pigeons. In one case I saw at least five hundred Carolina
doves acting this way, and had hard work to convince a sportsman friend
of mine that they were not Passenger Pigeons. Finally, after getting
directly under a small tree on which a dozen or more were perched, he
was able to see that characteristic black dot on the side of the neck,
and was also able to estimate more correctly the actual size of the
birds.
Yours very truly,
Walter B. Burrows,
_Professor of Zoology._
Agricultural College,
Ingham Co., Mich., June 17, 1905.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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