56 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



thunder shower. The lowest stratum of birds was just 

 above the orchard trees and many young men. with 

 shot-guns, tired into the passing flocks, as they came 

 into range ; but they obtained few birds in that man- 

 ner. The speed of the flocks made of their feathers 

 coats of mail, impervious to small shot, their heads 

 alone were vulnerable, in a flock coming tow^ard the 

 shooters. Those who shot into the rear of the birds 

 tliat had passed them, killed many birds which were 

 usually precipitated into flelds of the farms beyond, or 

 into brush and briars, far away ; so. many dead 1 -irds 

 were never found, for they hid away, in their death- 

 struggles. 



Their colonies were generally regular in the border 

 lines, being parallelograms, squares and circles, even 

 to leaving the branches of an occupied tree that was 

 outside the boundary line, bare of nests ; while inside 

 the boundary lines the branches were all covered with 

 tliem, except a few near the tops of the trees upon 

 which the male birds roosted to guard the females sit- 

 ting on the nests below. The venerable Daniel Ott. of 

 Snyder county, has been frequently quoted on the fact 

 that, "The nesting grounds were arranged with mili- 

 tary precision." 



Some of the facts of pigeon nesting cities have been 

 clearly and plainly stated by Mr. C. W. Dickinson, of 

 McKean county, which are quoted below : "There is 

 only a small percentage of the American people of to- 



