CHAPTER XXIX. 



WHAT EXTERMINATED 



THE PASSENGER PIGEON 



The True Story, Related by One of the Most Famous 

 Pigeon Trappers in America — C. W. Dickinson 



(From the Altoona Tribune) 



FIRST, we wish to state that there is only a sinah per- 

 centage of the American people of today that can 

 imagine what an immense hody of pigeons there would 

 be in a large pigeon nesting. Take, for instance, the 

 nesting or pigeon city we had in McKean and Potter 

 Counties in Pennsylvania, in 1870, which was the larg- 

 est in this locality since 1830. This nesting was from 

 one half mile to two miles wide and about forty miles 

 long, running through an unbroken forest. The direc- 

 tion of this line was nearly east and west, but a zig- 

 zag line to keep near the main range of mountains 

 that divides the waters of the Allegheny and Susque- 

 hanna rivers. Both male and female birds help to 

 build the nest which is a very crude affair and, as 

 a rule, there is only one egg in each nest; perhaps 

 one nest in fiftv or one hundred will have two eees 

 in it. As soon as the eggs are laid, the hen birds sit 

 on the nests over night, while the toms roost in the 

 nesting or the adjoining territory. Now the birds are 



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