Where the mighty numbers went to when they left for the south is not accurately stated, and, of course, this will now never be known, but they were found to continue in flocks in Virginia, Kentucky and even Tennessee.
. . . In the latter part of April or early May the birds began nesting. The nest building beginning as soon as the birds had selected a woods for a rookery, the scene was one of great activity. Birds were flying in every direction in search of twigs for their platform nests, and it did seem that each pair was intent on securing materials at a distance from the structure. Many twigs were dropped in flying, or at the nest, and these were never reclaimed by their bearers, but were often picked up by other birds from another part of the rookery. This peculiarity in so many species of birds in nest building I could never understand.
It takes a pair of pigeons from four to six days to complete a nest, and any basketmaker could do a hundred per cent. better job with the same materials in a couple of hours. In the nest of the pigeon, man could certainly give the birds points for their benefit, for it is one of the most shiftless structures placed in trees that I have met with.
The nest is always composed of slender dead twigs, so far as I have observed, or ever learned from others, and in comparison, though smaller, much resembles some of the heron's structures. In some nests I have observed the materials are so loosely put together that the egg or young bird can be seen through the latticed bottom. In fact, it has been my custom to always thus examine the nests before climbing the tree.
The platform structures vary in diameter from six to twelve inches or more, differing in size according to the length of the sticks, but generally are about nine or ten inches across. An acquaintance of mine had tamed some wild birds, which at last bred regularly in captivity. These birds were well supplied with an abundance of material for their nests and always selected in confinement such as described above, and making a nest about nine inches in diameter.
The breeding places are generally found in oak woods, but the great nesting sites in Michigan were often in timbered lands, I am informed.
The height of the nest varies. It may be as low as six feet or all of sixty-five feet from the ground.
Passenger Pigeons are always gregarious when unmolested, and hundreds of thousands sometimes breed in a neighborhood at one time. It is impossible to say how many nests were the most found in one tree, but there are authenticated instances of a hundred. One man, on whose veracity I rely, informs me that he counted 110 nests in one tree in Emmett County, the lower peninsula. Still this may not be correct, for we all know how easy it is to be deceived in correctly counting and keeping record of even the branches of a tree, and when these limbs are occupied by nests it is certainly doubly difficult, and the tendency to count the same nests twice is increased.
The first nests that I found were in large white oak trees at the edge of a pond. The date was May 17, 1873. The nests were few in number and only one nest in a tree. There was but a single egg in a nest; in fact this is all I have found at any time. The last nest that I have met with south of the forty-third parallel was forty feet up in a tamarack tree in a swamp near the river, June 1, 1884. This nest was alone and would not have been discovered had not the birds flown to it. I have found several instances of pairs of pigeons building isolated nests, and cannot help but think that if all birds had followed this custom that the pigeons would still be with us in vast numbers.
As late as May 9, 1880, my lamented friend, the late C. W. Gunn, found a rookery in a cedar woods in Cheboygan County. These nests contained a single egg each, and he secured about fifty fresh eggs. He did not think their number excessive, as the netters were killing the birds in every direction. But now we can look upon such a trip almost as devastation because the birds are so scarce.