THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 105 



The pigeon nesting was a boon to many poor men. 

 Ten or twelve dollars' worth of the old birds was 

 frequently the result of one day's shooting. One dol- 

 lar per dozen was the price of pigeons on the ground. 

 The price for squabs was forty cents per dozen. 

 An industrious man, handy with an axe, could earn 

 more getting squabs than could be earned by shooting 

 the old birds. Breech-loading guns had not come into 

 general use at that time. The old muzzle loading gun 

 was liable to become so foul on a damp day as to be 

 unserviceable, if many consecutive shots were fired 

 in a short time. It is not difficult to conceive how 

 much greater must have been the slaughter, in after 

 times, when modern firearms had come into general 

 use. 



When we arrived at the nesting, hundreds of acres 

 of beech forest was being felled for the squabs, great 

 numbers of these were taken to a shanty and sold to 

 buyers, who had men hired to prepare and pack them 

 for transportation to market. Gunners swarmed in 

 every section of the forest, the thud of the axman's 

 strokes, the crash of falling trees, the flutter of wings 

 and cooing of pigeons, the incessant report of shot- 

 guns, the laughter, cursing and shouting of men filled 

 the woods with a medley of sounds almost crazing, and 

 made it seem as though it were a pendemonium for a 

 saturnalia of slaughter. 



