Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 166, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 July 1911 — NEST OF PASSENGER PIGEONS [ARTICLE]

NEST OF PASSENGER PIGEONS

Pair of Birds of Race Almost Extinct! Raising Young—Specimens Worth SI,OOO Apiece. ■ i; Independence, Mo. —What is believed to be a pair of passenger pigeons, supposed to be almost extinct in this country, where once there were millions of them, has been found in the deep woods east of Independence, and members of the Independence patrol of boy scouts are guarding the nest until the young ard hatched. After that, probably, the birds will be taken and efforts made! to propagate them under conditions as nearly as pdbsible in their wild state.

The only other Known survivors of the once vast flocks of these pigeons are, or were until recently, in the zoological gardens at Cincinnati, O. Ornithologists here say that if the birds now being guarded are real passenger pigeons they are worth at least SI,OOO apiece. For fear of frightening them away, no effort has been made to observe them closely, but from what the ornithologists have been able to see of them with field glasses they have every characteristic of the true passenger pigeon. Their color is a dark, slaty blue on top, fading off to a soft brownish tinge underneath. The pasenger pigeons once were so plentiful in this locality that they could be killed with clubs, and during their migrations so many of them were killed that they sold as low as 50 cents a barrel.