Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/192

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The Last of the Pigeons
159

Agricultural College,

Ingham Co., Mich., June 17, 1905.

Mr. W. B. Mershon, Saginaw, Mich.

Dear Sir: — Yours of the 16th is at hand and in reply I would say that the Carolina dove is rarely found north of the Au Sable River, and I should not expect ever to see it there in flocks in the spring; on the other hand it is just as likely to be found early in the season as the Passenger Pigeon, since the Carolina dove winters regularly in southern Michigan and is one of the first birds to appear in the spring in this county, in fact not infrequently staying here through the winter. On the whole, however, I think there can be little doubt that Mr. King's report relates to the Passenger Pigeon and not to the dove. I have had some photographs taken of the Carolina dove and Passenger Pigeon together, and will ask my assistant, Mr. Myers, to mail you prints of these within a few days as soon as he has time to make some good ones. If these do not show what you desire we will try again.

Yours very truly,

Walter B. Burrows,

Professor of Zoology.

Mr. George E. Atkinson, to whom I am indebted for much valuable data in this book, writes from Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, July 21, 1905, as follows: