"I came to the Red River Settlement in 1860 and found the pigeons very plentiful on my arrival. The birds came in many thousands, and great numbers of them bred in the northeastern portion of the province through the district north of the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake, where the cranberry and blueberry are abundant. These fruits constitute their chief food supply, as they remain on the bushes and retain much of their food properties until well on into the summer following their growth. They also feed largely on acorns wherever they abound. The decline began about the early seventies, and 1877 was the first year in which I encountered large flocks of them passing northwesterly from White Sand River near Fort Pelly. This was on a dull, drizzling day about the middle of May, and I presume they were then heading towards the Barren Grounds district, where the blueberry and the cranberry are very abundant."
Mr. E. H. G. G. Hay, formerly police magistrate of Portage la Prairie, now of St. Andrews, reports:
"I came to the country in June, 1861, and found that the pigeons were abundant previous to my arrival. To give you an idea of their numbers, a Mr. Thompson of St. Andrews some mornings caught with a net about ten feet square as many as eighty dozen, and in the spring of 1864 I fired into a flock as they rose from the ground and picked up seventeen birds.
"The birds were mostly migratory in what is now known as Manitoba, and most of them went farther north after the seeding season. I never heard of any extensive rookeries such as those observed in the east and south. The few that bred here frequented mixed poplar and spruce. They seemed most numerous in the sixties and began to show signs of decreasing about 1869 or 1870, and by 1875 they had all disappeared and I have only seen an occasional bird since."
Mr. William Clark of the Hudson's Bay Company, Winnipeg, informs me:
"The first place I remember having seen pigeons in Manitoba was at White Horse Plains (St. François Xavier) in 1865, where they were very numerous, breeding in the oak trees in that district. Two years after this I went to Oak Point on Lake Manitoba, but do not remember the birds there then nor since."
Mr. Charles A. Boultbee of Macgregor, Man., replies as follows:
"I have resided in Manitoba since 1872, and have taken pigeons as far north as Fort Pelly in the fall of 1874, but know nothing of them previously. In our district they usually made their appearance in the fall and fed upon the grain. They continued fairly numerous until about 1882, at which time we had to drive them from the grain stocks, but they then disappeared and only stragglers have been noted since."
There is no doubt that many other reports could have been secured, but, as all seem to tend toward the one conclusion, I shall save time and space by summarizing the information at hand.