PASSENGER PIGEON 397 



next morning " the authors of all this devastation began their entry 

 amongst the dead, the dying, and the mangled. The pigeons were 

 picked up and piled in heaps until each had as many as they could 

 possibly dispose of, when the hogs were let loose to feed on the 

 remainder." 



John Lewis Childs (1905) says that an old settler in Maine told 

 him " that a common way of killing them off was to dig a long 

 trench in which a quantity of wheat was scattered to attract the 

 birds. "When they came and settled down to feed, filling the trench 

 to its utmost capacity, one discharge from some advantageous point 

 of an old flint-lock musket loaded with a handful of shot would 

 often result in the killing of as many as 75 birds." He adds that 

 " in those days wild pigeons were hunted for three distinct reasons — 

 as sport, as an article of food, and because they were destructive to 

 crops." 



Although this early slaughter in many places, largely for indi- 

 vidual use, doubtless reduced the numbers of the passenger pigeon 

 and started it on the road to extinction, the systematic destruction 

 on a large and commercial scale, which began in the forties and 

 reached its highest point late in the sixties and in the seventies of 

 the nineteenth century, was responsible for the ultimate result. This 

 perfection of extermination was brought about by the increasing 

 development of the mail and telegraph systems, by which the pro 

 fessional netters, or " pigeoners " as they were called, were informed 

 of and kept in touch with roosting places, in both winter and sum- 

 mer, with flights, and especially with nesting places. A spreading 

 network of railroads enabled the pigeoner to arrive promptly in 

 the region of his quarry and to send back to the markets many tons 

 of the dead bodies of this beautiful bird, as well as thousands of 

 living ones to be used in clubs for trap shooting. The decreasing 

 area of forest suitable for the pigeons tended to concentrate the 

 remainder and render it easier to locate them. 



Prof. H. B. Roney (1879) estimated that at the time of his writ- 

 ing there were about 5,000 men in the United States who pursued 

 pigeons year after year as a business. These men had perfected 

 the methods of netting, which was generally done at a bed of muck 

 baited with salt and sulphur, or grain. The net, about 6 feet wide 

 and 20 to 30 feet long, could be sprung by means of ropes and a 

 powerful spring pole from a blind by the operator, and " fliers " (cap- 

 tive birds thrown up into the air) or " stool pigeons " (birds tied to 

 a pole that could be suddenly raised and lowered by a cord, making 

 the birds flutter as if alighting) were used to lure down the birds 

 flying overhead. Professor Roney found that 60 to 90 dozen birds 



