396 BULLETIN 162, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



tion of shooting some of them at that season of the year, but that the savages 

 had at first with kindness endeavored to dissuade them from such a purpose, 

 and later added threats to their entreaties when the latter were of no avail. 



There are numerous accounts of the slaughter of the pigeons, but 

 a few will suffice. Wilson (1832) described the slaughter in a nest- 

 ing, said to be 40 miles in extent, in Kentucky, as follows : 



As soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the nests, 

 numerous parties of the inhabitants, from all parts of the adjacent country, 

 came with wagons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied 

 by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at 

 this immense nursery. * * * The ground was strewed with broken limbs 

 of trees, eggs, and squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, 

 and on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles 

 were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their 

 nests at pleasure; while from twenty feet upwards to the tops of the trees 

 the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and 

 fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder; mingled 

 with the frequent crash of falling timber ; for now the axe-men were at work 

 cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowded with nests ; and con- 

 trived to fell them in such a manner that in their descent they might bring 

 down several others ; by which means the falling of one large tree some- 

 times produced two hundred squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and 

 almost one mass of fat. * * * It was dangerous to walk under the flying 

 and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down 

 by the weight of multitudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed 

 numbers of the birds themselves ; while the clothes of those engaged in 

 traversing the woods were completely covered with the excrements of the 

 pigeons. 



Wilson also described the destruction of pigeons on migration : 



In the Atlantic states, though they never appear in such unparalleled mul- 

 titudes, they are sometimes very numerous ; and great havoc is then made 

 amongst them with the gun, the clap-net, and various other implements of 

 destruction. As soon as it is ascertained in a town that the pigeons are 

 flying numerously in the neighborhood, the gunners rise en masse; the clap-nets 

 are spread out on suitable situations, commonly on an open height, in an old 

 buckwheat field ; four or Ave live pigeons with their eyelids sewed up, are 

 lastened on a moveable stick — a small hut of branches is fitted up for the 

 fowler at the distance of forty or fifty yards; by the pulling of a string, the 

 stick on which the pigeons rest is alternately elevated and depressed, which pro- 

 duces a fluttering of their wings similar to that of birds just alighting; this 

 being perceived by the passing flocks, they descend with great rapidity, and 

 finding corn, buckwheat, etc., strewed about, begin to feed, and are instantly, 

 by the pulling of a cord, covered with the net. In this manner ten, twenty, and 

 even thirty dozen have been caught in one sweep. Meantime the air is darkened 

 with larger bodies of them moving in various directions; the woods also swarm 

 with them in search of acorns; and the thundering of musketry is perpetual 

 on all sides from morning to night. Wagon-loads of them are poured into 

 market, where they sell from fifty to twenty-five and even twelve cents a dozen. 



Audubon (1840) describes the killing in a roost in a similar way 

 and adds iron pots containing burning sulphur, torches of pine knots, 

 and long poles to the instruments of destruction. He says that the 



