The Passenger Pigeon 



91 



Lake Champlain, Self-slaughter was another means of their destruction. 

 The continual breaking of overladen limbs took its heavy toll of wounded and 

 killed birds, and it was a common practice, for man and beast, to gather up 

 and devour the dead and dying, which were found in cartloads. Occasionally, 

 animals were said to have gone mad from feeding on their remains. 



Their Uses. — All observers seemed generally agreed that they were deli- 

 cate food. The F^uropeans preferred them for their tla\'or to any other Pigeons 

 of their experience. Kalm, the 

 Swedish savant, considered 

 them the most palatable of any 

 bird's flesh he had ever tasted. 

 Throughout the country, they 

 were proclaimed of great benefit 

 in feeding the poor; for many 

 weeks, they furnished an ad- 

 ditional dish for the southern 

 planter's table. In Canada, 

 "during the flights . . . the 

 lower sort of Canadians mostly 

 subsisted on them." Another 

 held them the exclusive food 

 of the inhabitants of this sec- 

 tion. During the shooting sea- 

 son, they were on every table. 

 The hunters sold a part of th(-ir 

 bag and kept the remainder. 

 Often they fattened the live 

 Pigeons for the market. These 

 commanded good prices, but the 

 dead birds sometimes sold as 

 low as three pence per dozen, 

 or a bushel for a pittance. In 

 fact, one writer frequently saw them "at the market so cheap that, for a penny, 

 you might have as many as you could carry away; and yet, from the extreme 

 cheapness, you must not conclude that they are but ordinary food; on the 

 contrary ,^they are excellent." These birds furnished soups and fricassees, 

 which were usually dressed with cream sauce and small onions. In some 

 parts, they served as luxuries on the tables of the aristocrats. In requital 

 for the damage they did, "The farmers, besides having plenty of them for 

 home use, and giving them to their servants, and even to their dogs and pigs^ 

 salted caskfuls of them for the winter." The traveler found little else at the 

 inns when Pigeons were flying. The savages heaped their boards with a royal 

 abundance of them. They could eat them fresh, dried, smoked, or any other 



PASSENGER PIGEON, IMMATURE 



