32 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



to gather up whatever could be found. Whole fam- 

 ilies came with barrels and salt; the young birds, tinm 

 ten ounces to twenty ounces weight, wxre dressed, salt- 

 ed and packed in barrels and carted away to markets 

 and for storing until needed. Many old birds were 

 shot and disposed of until it seemed that only a few 

 more migrated than came. 



John Grimes and William French saw it all in 

 that spring of 1810 from Towanda creek, Bradford 

 county, Pa., to the Chenango creek, Broome county, 

 N. Y., before those counties had all been created and 

 named. They investigated and thev marveled that 

 there could be so many pigeons in all the world. They 

 were so disgusted by what they saw and heard that 

 neither of them ever went near a pigeon nesting city 

 again. They sympathized wath the Indians, who 

 taught conservation of the young birds and protected 

 them by slaying the wolves that howled around 

 the nesting places — and held the parent birds sacred 

 during the four weeks of incubating and feeding the 

 young birds, killing for their food only the unmated 

 and quiescent old birds and the young birds which fell 

 from their nests prematurely. 



They had learned that, when a colony was located, 

 the nests were built and the eggs all laid and hatched 

 within sixteen to eighteen days, and that later arriving 

 parent birds established another colony far enough 

 away to leave the first colony free to rear the young 

 and depart, with no waste of time in waiting for the 

 tardy flock. The passenger pigeon v.as a bird of free- 



