Mr. T. E. Douglas of Grayling, Mich., reports that in the year 1900 he saw three Passenger Pigeons on the East Branch of Au Sable River, Michigan, and about five years previous to that date a flock of ten was seen around George's Lake, which is eight miles southwest of West Branch, Michigan.
I also have a record of one pigeon taken by Mr. John H. Sage, in Portland, Conn., in October, 1889.
In May, 1904, Hon. Chase S. Osborn wrote:
Dear Mr. Mershon: I haven't much information relating to the pigeons in this section of the country. In fact, the pigeon was practically gone from the north when I first visited the country in 1880. I remember seeing a flock of about three hundred in Florence County, Wis., which would probably be on a line fifty miles south of here, in 1883. In 1884 I saw a flock in that same section, in the woods northwest of Florence, of about fifty. In 1890 I six of these birds near the mouth of the Little Munoskong River in this county. This river empties into Munoskong Bay, about thirty miles southeast of here. In 1897 I saw a single wild pigeon, flying with the tame pigeons around this town. It was a remarkable sight and attracted the attention of many local bird lovers. There is no doubt that it was a pigeon, and it was absolutely alone as far as we could discover.
Upon inquiry here among old residents, I am told that there was quite a large roost on a beech ridge about forty miles west of here, which would be at a point north of the present station of Eckerman. I have been unable to learn just when this roosting place was discontinued, but as near as I can make out from comparing statements and records, it must have been in '78, '79, or '80.
I have heard of a large roosting place in northern Wisconsin which was used as late as 1874 by vast numbers of birds. It was located to the south and a little west of Lac Vieux Desert. At the head of the Pike River in Wisconsin, a point probably sixty-five miles south of here, and west into that State, the pigeons were seen in large numbers until 1872. As I understand it, in the early days they were very likely to frequent the same section year after year when not too much disturbed.
Mr. Newell A. Eddy of Bay City, Mich., under date of Aug. 7, 1905, wrote me as follows:
I find that I have but few notes regarding this species. On Sept. 13, 1880, I took a single bird near the city of Bangor, Maine. The sex was not determined. This was an unusual capture for the place and the time. A few years previous to that time, on a canoeing trip to the headwaters of the Penobscot River, I fell in with a small flock of a dozen or more in an old burnt-over swamp, but was unable to secure any of them.
I presume that you have an abundance of notes on the Passenger Pigeon in this section of the country at the time it was so abundant here, as such information is readily obtainable from any of the old inhabitants of this locality. I had a very interesting interview the other day with Mr. C. E. Jennison of this city, who was one of our earliest settlers, and he gave me a great deal of information about this bird in the earlier days of Bay City. He also stated, which was quite interesting, that six or seven years ago he saw a few birds at Thunder Bay Island, near Alpena. This appears to be his last record of this species.