The Passenger Pigeon 



spring is here, for the buds are swelling on the twigs of 

 the elms and the pussy willows show their dainty, silvery 

 signals to tell us that the vernal equinox has come and 

 gone. 



"If the springtime is still young, so is the day. Light 

 is breaking in the gray sky of dawn as we hurry along 

 the slippery, sticky road. We must make haste to the 

 point of woods, by John Winter's clearing, before full 

 daybreak or the pigeons will be flying and we will miss 

 the early flocks which always keep nearest the ground. 



"You may be curious to know what we look like as 

 we trudge along in Indian file, eagerly chatting about 

 a kind of sport which this later generation knows noth- 

 ing about. I am a chunk of a country lad, topped by a 

 woolen cap with ear-tabs pulled down over my ears, a 

 tippet around my neck, yarn mittens on my hands, which 

 are sure to be badly skinned and chapped this time of 

 year from playing 'knuckle-down-tight.' 



"My 'every-day pants' are tucked into a pair of calf- 

 skin boots with square pieces of red leather for the tops, 

 an old-fashioned adornment dear to Young America of 

 my day. My old Irish water spaniel 'Sport' is tagging 

 behind or charging frantically ahead; my gun is a six- 

 teen-gauge muzzle loader, stub and twist barrels, with 

 dogs' heads for the hammers. 



"Dangling from one shoulder is a leather shot pouch 

 that cuts off one ounce of number eights for a load. 

 The sides of this pouch are embossed, on the one a 



