The Way Things Used to Be: Passenger Pigeons in New York City

The following very brief note (.pdf) appeared in the October 1960 issue of The Auk:

Hugh Gaine, an Irish-born printer and bookseller, who landed in New York in 1745 ?without basket or burden,? ran a print shop across from the Old-Slip Market and established the ?New-York Mercury.? On Monday, 11 March 1754, on page 3, he recorded: ?Yesterday we had the greatest Flight of Pidgeons over this City, that has been known for many Years past, so early in the Season.?

Could this two-sentence note be the shortest contribution ever published by any of the major ornithological publications?

Citation: Sherman, Constance D. 1960. Eighteenth-century observation of flight of Passenger (?) Pigeons over New York City. Auk 77: 474-475.

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