30 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



for Amos Bennett. There he hrst met his future wife, 

 Esther Martin, daughter of veteran John Gideon Mar- 

 tin, the scout of Oriskany battle, and at Burgoyne's 

 surrender. He also became acquainted with Miss 

 Anna Bennett, a little girl of 6 y.eari, and a boy, John 

 Grimes, who married her eighteen years later — the 

 parents of Edwin Grimes, the great st.ill hunter of deer 

 in Potter county. 



The two boys went to the pigeor. city in the Sus- 

 quehanna valley and tributary territory in Bradford, 

 Tioga, and New York counties norch of them, about 

 fifty miles from southwest to northeast. The old birds 

 flew westward, against the wind, to the beech forests, 

 flying low and fast. They returned, flying high and 

 leisurely, to their nests. Those witriout nests roosted 

 in the tops of the same or adjacent trees around the 

 nesting colony they were attached to. Most of the 

 nests contained two young pigeons, some nests only 

 one, which flew to the ground before they were able 

 to fly back into the high trees. The young birds trav- 

 eled to the eastward or with the wind, picking up 

 nuts, insects and everything they c<'-.uld eat; roosting 

 in low trees till they were strong enough to fly back 

 to the roosts, and then join the old birds in their 

 flights to feeding places. 



When the young birds fluttered from the nests in 

 large numbers they started at once and kept going 

 ahead, in spite of the wild animals and hawks that 

 killed many of them. If they came to a road they 

 crossed it; a stream, they flew over; or they fell ex- 



