THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 81 



''feathering" tlie blade of his oar in throwing it back 

 for another stroke. Their power of sight wtis re- 

 markable, being adapted for near or distant objects, 

 like many other birds, so that when passing a freshly 

 sown field, like a streak in the air, they would swoop 

 down, pick up all the grain in sight in a few moments, 

 and go forward again, like a raging tempest, in haste 

 to overtake their fellow flocks that had passed too far 

 to right or left to observe the grain in the field, or they 

 had been steering for another prize. 



In starting upon a journey from perches in the 

 tall trees, passenger pigeons, at first, dipped slightly 

 toward the earth and tobogganed down the decline 

 with increasing velocity, in the general direction they 

 wished to go, and skimmed along the valley, between 

 the hills. Then they began to rise above the hills and 

 when high in the air they trimmed their course by curv- 

 ing toward the exact place they sought, accelerating the 

 pace until a speed of nearly a hundred miles an hour 

 was attained, and maintained to the end of their trip, 

 when they circled in a wide, declining plane and gently 

 alighted upon the ground, with a roaring of wings like 

 a fearful tempest, or sought the branches of trees be- 

 yond, in a graceful upward sweep that absorbed much 

 of the momentum they had attained. 



To get the old pigeons as they passed along the 

 valleys during the first dozen miles of their trips to 

 their feeding grounds, the men rented cleared places 

 upon the sandy flats along the rivers, removed the sod 

 of a square rod, built a tepee of boughs at one side to 



