634 PIGEON TRIBE. 



communities. But their most destructive enemy is man ; 

 and as soon as the young are fully grown, the neighbour- 

 ing inhabitants assemble, and encamp for several days 

 around the devoted Pigeons with waggons, axes, and 

 cooking utensils, like the outskirts of a destructive army. 

 The perpetual tumult of the birds, the crowding and 

 fluttering multitudes, the thundering roar of their wings, 

 and the crash of falling trees, from which the young are 

 thus precipitated to the ground by the axe, produces al- 

 together a scene of indescribable and almost terrific 

 confusion. It is dangerous to walk beneath these clus- 

 tering crowds of birds, from the frequent descent of large 

 branches, broken down by the congregating millions ; 

 the horses start at the noise, and conversation can only 

 be heard in a shout. These squabs, or young Pigeons, 

 of which three or four broods are produced in the season, 

 are extremely fat and palatable, and, as well as the old 

 birds killed at the roosts, are often, with a wanton prodi- 

 gality and prodigious slaughter, strewed on the ground 

 as fattening food for the hogs ! At the roosts, the de- 

 struction is no less extensive ; guns, clubs, long poles, 

 pots of burning sulphur, and every other engine of de- 

 struction, which wanton avarice can bring forward, are 

 all employed against the swarming host. Indeed for a 

 time, in many places, nothing scarcely is seen, talked of, 

 or eaten, but Pigeons ! 



In the Atlantic States where the flocks are less abun- 

 dant, the gun, decoy, and net are put in operation against 

 the devoted throng. Twenty or even thirty dozen have 

 been caught at a single sweep of the net. Wagon 

 loads of them are poured into market, where they are 

 sometimes sold for no more than a cent a piece. Their 

 combined movements are also sometimes sufficiently ex- 

 tensive. The Honorable T. H. Perkins remarks, that 



