6 PIGEON TRIBE. 



a wanton prodigality and prodigious slaughter, strewed on the 

 ground as fattening food for the hogs. At the roosts the 

 destruction is no less extensive ; guns, clubs, long poles, pots 

 of burning sulphur, and every other engine of destruction 

 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 abundant^ 

 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 apiece. Their combined movements are 

 also sometimes sufficiently extensive. The Honorable T. H. 

 Perkins remarks that about the year 1798, while he was pass- 

 ing through New Jersey, near Newark, the flocks continued to 

 pass for at least two hours without cessation ; and he learnt 

 from the neighboring inhabitants that in descending upon a 

 large pond to drink, those in the rear, alighting on the backs of 

 the first that arrived (in the usual order of their movements on 

 land to feed), pressed them beneath the surface, so that tens of 

 thousands were thus drowned. They were likewise killed in 

 great numbers at the roosts with clubs. 



Down to twenty years ago immense flocks of Pigeons were 

 seen yearly in every State of New England, and they nested in 

 communities that were reckoned by thousands. Now, in place of 

 the myriads that gathered here, only a few can be found, and these 

 are scattered during the breeding-season, — each pair selecting an 

 isolated site for the nest. 



Twenty years ago the Wild Pigeon was exceedingly abundant in 

 the Maritime Provinces of Canada; now it is rare. Mcllwraith 

 sends a similar report from Ontario. Wheaton, in Ohio, finds it 

 " irregular and uncommon," and writes of the " throngs " that 

 formerly nested there. Ridgeway says nothing of its occurrence 

 in Illinois to-day, but repeats the story of the older observers, 

 to whom it was familiar. Warren says it appears in Pennsylvania 

 in the fall, but no longer in the abundance of former years. To- 

 day we must go to the upper regions of the Mississippi valley and 



