The Pigeon Butcher's Defense 95 



each hatching taking four weeks, from the beginning of 

 nest building to the time the old birds leave the young. 

 It is true, however, that birds were shipped from 

 Petoskey the middle of August, but they were birds 

 belonging to me that I was holding there for a market, 

 my Chicago pens being full. Every bird of them had 

 been in my possession for a month previous, and many 

 for six weeks. So the actual pigeon business lasted not 

 five months, as Prof. Roney says, but about three; part 

 of which time the total catch was not fifty dozen per 

 day. 



***** 



They (Prof. Roney et al.) came to Petoskey with a 

 great flourish of trumpets, hired expensive livery rigs 

 to ride around the country in, made one or two arrests, 

 secured one conviction by default, were defeated in 

 every case that came to trial, had one of the party play 

 the role of "terrible example" in the trout case, and 

 then went home, and in the face of the fact that they 

 had eaten, or known of having been eaten, hundreds of 

 pigeons, and of the certainty that the report was false, 

 had published in the Saginaw paper a report that the 

 pigeons then being caught in Michigan were feeding on 

 poisoned berries, and the using them for food had 

 caused much sickness, and in one or two instances loss 

 of life. 



This was not only published in the home papers, but 

 was telegraphed to New York, Boston, Chicago, St. 



