Efforts to Check the Slaughter 91 



shipped by steamer to Chicago 128 barrels of dead birds 

 and 108 crates of live birds. On the next Sabbath 

 following our arrival the shipments were only forty- 

 three barrels and fifty-two crates. Thus it will be seen 

 that some little good was accomplished, but that little 

 was included in a very few days of the season, for the 

 treasury of the home clubs would not admit of keep- 

 ing their representatives longer at the nesting, the State 

 clubs, save one, did not respond to the call for assist- 

 ance, and the men were recalled, after which the Indians 

 went back into the nesting, and the wanton crusade was 

 renewed by pigeoners and all hands with an energy which 

 indicated a determination to make up for lost time. 



The first shipment of birds from Petoskey was upon 

 March 22, and the last upon August 12, making over 

 twenty weeks, or five months, that the bird war was 

 carried on. For many weeks the railroad shipments 

 averaged fifty barrels of dead birds per day — thirty 

 to forty dozen old birds and about fifty dozen squabs 

 being packed in a barrel. Allowing 500 birds to a 

 barrel, and averaging the entire shipments for the 

 season at twenty-five barrels per day, we find the rail 

 shipments to have been 12,500 dead birds daily, or 

 1,500,000 for the summer. Of live birds there were 

 shipped 1,116 crates, six dozen per crate, or 80,352 

 birds. 



These were the rail shipments only, and not including 

 the cargoes by steamers from Petoskey, Cheboygan, 



