CHAPTER IV 

 As James Fenimore Cooper Saw It 



ONE of the most graphic descriptions ever 

 written of a pigeon flight and slaughter is to 

 be found in Cooper's novel, "The Pioneers," 

 from which I make the following extracts : 



" See, cousin Bess ! see, Duke, the pigeon-roosts of 

 the south have broken up ! They are growing more 

 thick every instant. Here is a flock that the eye cannot 

 see the end of. There is food enough in it to keep the 

 army of Xerxes for a month and feathers enough to 

 make beds for the whole country. . . . The re- 

 ports of the firearms became rapid, whole volleys rising 

 from the plain, as flocks of more than ordinary num- 

 bers darted over the opening, shadowing the field like 

 a cloud; and then the light smoke of a single piece 

 would issue from among the leafless bushes on the moun- 

 tain, as death was hurled on the retreat of the affrighted 

 birds, who were rising from a volley, in a vain effort to 

 escape. Arrows and missiles of every kind were in the 

 midst of the flocks; and so numerous were the birds, 

 and so low did they take their flight, that even long 

 poles, in the hands of those on the sides of the moun- 



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