Recent widespread newspaper accounts to the effect that the United States Department of Agriculture is offering ten thousand dollars reward to the person finding a passenger or “wood”-pigeon nest containing two eggs, resulted in hundreds of letters being sent to the department.
The report is not based upon facts, as the department has offered no such reward, and there is every reason to believe the passenger pigeon which formerly roamed the country in flocks of millions is extinct. In 1910 about one thousand dollars in rewards was offered by Clark University for the first undisturbed nests of the passenger pigeon to be found in the United States. This was a great stimulus to action. The hunt for this pigeon was fruitless. The offer of rewards was renewed for several years, until it was fully established that the pigeon was extinct.
The passenger pigeon up to 1885 ranged the American continent east of the Rocky Mountains. The mourning dove has often been mistaken for the passenger pigeon,[Pg 66] which in a general way it resembles. However, this bird is quite distinct from the passenger pigeon; it is shorter and has different color markings.
The press reports stated that the now extinct passenger pigeon was valued because of its usefulness in destroying the gipsy moth and other moths and pests which are doing millions of dollars of damage. Although the preservation of this pigeon is much to be desired, it would be of absolutely no value in eliminating the gipsy moth, as the pigeons are almost entirely vegetarian in their diet.
Wounded Dog Returns Home.
A dog belonging to Edward Dougherty, of Spring Grove, Pa., was shot through the head twice with a thirty-eight-caliber revolver by Dougherty. The dog lay on the same spot for seven days and seven nights, but on the beginning of the eighth day he came back to his old home, hardly able to drag himself along. After being fed and given water to drink, the dog seemed to be all right.
The dog ate eggs from the nests in Dougherty’s henhouse before his punishment and since his extraordinary experience he has not eaten one egg. Mr. Dougherty is sure he put two bullets through the dog’s brain.
Muskrat and Trout Battle.
Lew McQuiston, a well-known angler of Bellefonte, Pa., witnessed a unique battle a few days ago between a muskrat and a two-foot trout.
McQuiston went to Spring Creek shortly before dusk to try and land some big trout. While whipping the stream, he saw something doing on the other side of the creek, about sixty feet away from where he was standing. In the quickly gathering shadows it was hard to tell at first what it was, but after closer inspection he saw that it was a mammoth trout and a muskrat.