SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 439 



they brought usually from threepence to sixpence per dozen. 

 In 1790 they brought ninepence per dozen, and a few years 

 after 1800, one shilling, sixpence. After 1850 they were sold 

 at from seventy -five cents to a dollar and a half a dozen. ^ 



In the History of the Sesqui-centennial Celebration of the 

 Town of Hadley, Mass., it is stated that before 1719 Wild 

 Pigeons in their migrations roosted in countless numbers in 

 the oak and chestnut groves on the plains. 



Thompson states that when the country was new there 

 were many of their breeding places in Vermont; also, that 

 they were much less abundant (1842) than formerly; "but," 

 he says, "they now, in some years, appear in large numbers."- 



Great nestings became few and far between in the east, as 

 the Pigeons decreased; but there were many small breeding 

 places regularly occupied during the first half of the nine- 

 teenth century, and scattered pairs bred commonly. Mr. 

 Clayton E. Stone sends an account of the nesting site of a 

 flock of Passenger Pigeons, furnished by his father, Mr. Still- 

 man Stone, who was well acquainted with the birds. It was 

 situated on the side of Mt. Sterling, in the towns of Stowe 

 and Hyde Park (formerly Sterling), in the northern part of 

 Vermont. Mr. Stone was acquainted with it from 1848 to 

 about 18.53. It occupied a tract of twenty acres or more of 

 old-growth maple and yellow birch. There were often as 

 many as twenty -five nests in a tree, and sometimes more. 

 The usual number of eggs in one nest was one or two, usually 

 one. Most of the time during the nesting season large flocks 

 of these birds could be seen coming and going in all directions 

 to and from the nests. The people from this and neighboring 

 towns went to the place with their teams to take up the 

 squabs that had fallen to the ground; they took them away by 

 cartloads. The squabs were distributed free, to be used as 

 food by all their friends and neighbors. 



In 1848 Mr. Stone and Madison Newcomb sprung a net 

 over forty -four dozen, or five hundred and twenty-eight birds, 

 at one cast, and they thought that only about one bird in four 



> Judd, Sylvester: History of Hadley, 1905, pp. 351, 352. 

 2 Thompson, Zadock: History of Vermont, 1842, p. 100. 



