SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 471 



nest. Thus the eggs were kept covered all the time. The 

 adult birds never ate the nuts and acorns in the immediate 

 vicinity of the nesting place, but went to a distance for their 

 food, and left the mast in the neighborhood for the young to 

 feed on when they came out of the nest. It is said that for 

 miles around there were no caterpillars or inchworms in the 

 oak woods for several years after a nesting, as the adults 

 secured practically all of them for the young, thereby pro- 

 tecting the forests against their insect enemies. When the 

 young were first pushed out of the nest by the parents, they 

 went to the ground and fed mainly in the lower parts of the 

 woods until they became expert in flying. They passed over 

 the ground, the lower ranks continually flying over those in 

 front, scratching out all the edible material, those flying over- 

 head striking off the nuts as they flew by. The young birds 

 were able to reproduce their kind in about six months. 



Chief Pokagon asserts that while the old birds were feed- 

 ing they always had guards on duty, to give an alarm in case 

 of danger. The watch bird as it took flight beat its wings 

 together in quick succession, with a sound like the roll of a 

 snare drum. Quick as thought each bird repeated the alarm 

 with a thundering sound, as the flock struggled to rise, leading 

 a novice to imagine that a cyclone was coming. 



In feeding, the birds were very voracious. They scratched 

 among the leaves and unearthed every nut or acorn, some- 

 times almost choking in their efforts to swallow an unusually 

 large specimen. During the breeding season they were fond of 

 salty mud and water, and the pigeoners, learning of this, were 

 accustomed to attract the birds to their death by salting down 

 " mud beds," to which the poor Pigeons flocked in multitudes, 

 and over which, when they were assembled, the pigeoners 

 threw their nets. 



The food of the Pigeons consisted mainly of vegetable 

 matter, except for the grasshoppers, caterpillars and other 

 insects, worms, snails, etc., which they ate, and which they fed 

 to their young. Acorns, beech nuts and chestnuts, with pine and 

 hemlock seeds, were among their principal staples of supply. 

 They also fed on the seeds of the elm, maple and other forest 



