Recollections of "Old Timers"
M
MR. OSCAR B. WARREN, now of Houghton, Mich., has been interested for years in collecting data about the Passenger Pigeon, and kindly turned over to me his entire budget. Among his letters is the following from Mr. H. T. Blodgett, Superintendent of Public Schools, Ludington, Mich., dated November 19, 1904:
. . . Your pigeon is a stranger to me, or rather has been a stranger for six or more years. I can distinctly remember clouds of them, darkening the sky, almost, in Pennsylvania, thirty years ago. Later, in Michigan, they were abundant, coming to this part of the State as soon as the snow was gone, picking up the beech nuts and "shack" of the woods. After a few weeks' flying about and feeding they would disappear; reappearing again in June, young pigeons, fat, and the choicest eating. They would stay a few weeks, not more than about three weeks, going about July 1. During this visit the birds haunted the thick woods, and would call from the shade of the leaves of beech, maple, and hemlock trees through the heat of the day, feeding mornings and evenings on the sprouted beech nuts under the leaves.
There would often be a third appearance in September, when I have seen buckwheat fields blue with them. Also fall-sowed wheat fields would be so covered with them that the farmer had to watch his fields to save the seed he had sowed.
During the spring and also the fall visit, flocks searching for feeding ground could be called down from flight and induced to light on trees near where the call was sounded. The call was one in imitation of the pigeon's own call, given either as a peculiar throat sound (liable to make the throat sore if too often repeated) or with a silk band between two blocks of wood, like this
