THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 49 



trees and get the squabs. Two young men carried 

 axes and another carried a double-barrel rifle. When 

 they felled their first tree, the young birds flew from 

 the nest, as the tree began to fall, and fluttered away 

 to a great distance, so they could not be found. There- 

 after the axemen pounded upon a tree and caused the 

 young birds to stretch their necks and show heads 

 above for the marksmen to cut ofl: with his bullets. 

 There were two young birds in most of the nests that 

 they shot into for squabs that day. 



William Lehman remembers visiting the nesting 

 colony on Bell's Run, in McKean county, in 1870, 

 where he climbed some small trees to get live squabs 

 for his uncle, Herman Lehman, who had built a park 

 for them to be domesticated in. Nearly every nest 

 held two squabs and he got fifty fine young birds. 

 Herman Lehman's park in Ulysses township. Potter 

 county, was large, with a creek running among the 

 trees of the enclosure; the birds thrived; but they bred 

 very little in confinement ; and never laid more than 

 one Qgg to each nest. Many times a nest was con- 

 structed by a pair of the birds, only to be abandoned 

 and no eggs laid in it, or when an egg was laid, it was 

 not incubated. 



