THE GREAT MASSACRE loi 



coming for their share of the feast. The slaugh- 

 tered Pigeons were gathered up and piled in heaps 

 until every one had all that he could cart away, and 

 then droves of hogs, sometimes driven from far 

 away, were turned into the woods to fatten on 

 the remainder. This massacre, repeated year 

 after year, nearly exterminated the breed, the hap- 

 less Passenger Pigeons being driven and followed 

 from one nesting-place to another. 



" 'In addition to those destroyed at the breeding 

 grounds, hundreds of thousands of old birds were 

 taken in clap nets, upwards of three hundred being 

 taken in a single haul, perhaps six thousand a 

 day. Many were sent by schooner-loads to New 

 York, where they were sold at one time for one cent 

 ■apiece, and they were so cheap in some places 

 that the hogs were fed on them.' " 



'* An' those everlastin' droves of Pigeons are all 

 gone for good an' all?" the pot-hunter queried 

 incredulously. 



*'Not one single Passenger Pigeon is left alive 

 on the face of the earth," the official replied 

 solemnly. *'In 1904 a single specimen was killed 

 near Bar Harbor, Me. In 1906, a single bird was 

 received from Black River, Ark., by a St. Louis 

 game merchant. In 1907 a taxidermist reported 



