138 The Passenger Pigeon 



would show that they had been to water prior to their 

 return flight, while at other times the food in their crops 

 would be dry. 



Some other boys and I had a lot of wild birds that 

 we bought alive from a netter. We put the birds in the 

 loft of a big barn where there was a lot of beans that 

 had not been threshed. We would put in a big trough 

 of water for them every day. The way those birds 

 threshed out those bean pods was a caution. They be- 

 came very fat and fairly tame. What wouldn't I give 

 to hear the call note of Tete ! Tete ! Tete ! of the pigeons 

 once more. Yours truly, 



Ben O. Bush. 



J. S. Van Cleef of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., wrote in 

 Forest and Stream of May 20, 1899, as follows: 



For many years up to about 1850, flocks of wild 

 pigeons in the fall were quite abundant, and were very 

 often taken with nets, which was a very favorite way of 

 capturing them at that time, but very few, if any, have 

 been taken in this manner since that time. A few small 

 flocks appeared in the fifties, but not to such an extent 

 that an attempt was made to capture them through the 

 aid of pigeon nets, and I find upon inquiry that the ex- 

 perience of others agrees with my own. 



The last flight of pigeons of which I have any knowl- 

 edge occurred in the seventies, where they nested in the 



