THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 169 



ed on the highlands of Potter county and William Sher- 

 wood and Otis Lyman procured a net 12x26 feet to 

 trap the old birds in their daily flights to their feeding] 

 grounds to westward. When returning the birds could 

 not be decoyed to alight ; l)ut in the early morning they 

 were hungry and the "flyers" and ''stool-pigeons" en- 

 ticed the flocks to come down and investiate, when 

 they were readily caught by springing the net over 

 them as they were settling upon the ground. One hun- 

 dred birds at each springing of the net was a fair aver- 

 age catch the first morning, at Burtville, Pa., but upon 

 succeeding days the pigeons were shy and only a fe\vj 

 could be caught at the same place. 



Before daylight Sherwood and Lyman were ready 

 for the work of their first day. They caught a fowl 

 more than 1,500 pigeons the first day, before 11 o'clock; 

 which they packed with ice in a large wagon bed, and 

 Otis started at once for Olean, New York, the nearest 

 railroad point at that time, where he arrived early the 

 next morning, after an all-night ride of about 32 miles. 

 The birds were repacked in barrels, with ice, and ship- 

 ped by express to a commission house in New York 

 city, for sale. Mr. Lyman rested a day and returned 

 to Roulette with a wagon load of flour, stopping a night 

 at Rant Larrabee's famous roadside inn of those days, 

 now Larrabee's station on Pennsylvania railroad. 



Few more pigeons had been caught by Mr. Sher- 

 wood and they abandoned the netting business. For 

 the catch of their first day they received a little over 

 $100, over and' above charges for expressage and com- 



