Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/177

 146 From "The Auk," July, 1895, under the title, "Additional Records of the Passenger Pigeon in Illinois and Indiana."

The occurrence of the wild pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius) in this section of the country, and, in fact, throughout the West generally, is becoming rarer every year, and such observations and data as come to our notice should be of sufficient interest to record.

I have, in the past few months, made inquiry of a great many sportsmen who are constantly in the field and in widely distributed localities, regarding any observations on the wild pigeon, and but few of them have seen a specimen in the past eight or ten years. N. W. Judy & Co., of St. Louis, Mo., dealers in poultry, and the largest receivers of game in that section, wrote as follows: "We have had no wild pigeons for two seasons; the last we received were from Siloam Springs, Ark. We have lost all track of them, and our netters are lying idle."

I have made frequent inquiry among the principal game dealers in Chicago and cannot learn of a single specimen that has been received in our markets in several years. I am indebted to the following gentlemen for notes and observations regarding this species, which cover a period of eight years. I have various other records of the occurrence of the pigeon in Illinois and Indiana, but do not consider them sufficiently authentic to record, as to the casual observer this species and the Carolina dove are often confounded.