THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 183 



thinks that he once saw a nest in a collection some 

 years ago. There are a fair number of eggs, which 

 change hands at $50 per egg. Mounted specimens are 

 also rare, but that is accounted for by the fact that 

 when these birds were as common as are our English 

 sparrows today, few wanted them in their collections, 

 preferring rarities. Mounted birds sell at $50 per speci- 

 men, though in some cases, as much as $150 has been 

 refused for especially fine male examples. Strangely 

 enough, adult male specimens, showing the rosy breast 

 at its best, are much rarer than female, and young male 

 and young female specimens. Added to the horrors of 

 squab hunting and killing were orgies o'f drunkeness 

 that made the scenes in the nesting grounds hideous to 

 recount. Ben. Holcomb, of Hickory Valley, Warren 

 County, tells that when the pigeons nested on Bobb's 

 Creek near there up to about 1885, a certain shrewd 

 individual always appeared at the nesting grounds with 

 a barrel of hard cider which he sold to the squab 

 hunters at five cents per tin-cup. Whenever a tree 

 was felled which contained an unusually large num- 

 ber of squabs, the Indian hunters from the Reserva- 

 tion would cheer and dance about like wild men. 

 Whole families of whites and Indians drove to Bobb's 

 Creek when the pigeons began their nestings, camp- 

 ing in the woods and pickling and barrelling tons of 

 squabs. Adolphe Shurr, formerly a woodsman in 

 Clinton County, states that there was a small nesting 



