Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/216

 Rh the spring of 1905, the Catskill Recorder, a newspaper published in this county, reported seeing a flock similar to the one seen at Kingston.

Wishing you success on your fishing trip, I am.

Yours truly,

C. W. Benton.

THE SULLIVAN COUNTY PIGEONS

, N. Y., June 30th.

Forest and Stream:

Since I wrote you a few weeks ago, I have been looking up the men who were reported to have seen wild pigeons recently. I have seen six men who are positive they have seen flocks of wild pigeons—some of them two years ago, and some of them this past spring. As these men were all past middle age and had been familiar with the pigeon thirty and forty years ago and were, moreover, men reported truthful and sober by their neighbors, and who impressed me as being entirely reliable, I feel bound to credit their several statements. At De Bruce, Sullivan County, Mr. Cooper, the postmaster and village blacksmith, said he had seen a large flock of pigeons in the fall two years ago. They were about a buckwheat field. He pointed out the hill about which they were flying. Mr. Cooper had shot and trapped a great many pigeons years ago, and was sure he could not mistake any other bird for a pigeon. A farmer, whose name I do not now remember and