208 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



of food, as their natural feeding grounds were being 

 stripped of food bearing trees, or were possibly in a 

 dense fog and lost their direction of flight, or were 

 driven over the ocean by a storm and, after aimlessly 

 circling around, the weaker finally settled upon the 

 water, and the balance of the flock, thinking they had 

 discovered ground, alighted upon those that had al- 

 ready settled, and hence were drowned. When pigeons 

 light upon the ground in vast numbers they are con- 

 stantly in motion, as though jumping over each other, 

 and in appearance like waves. 



Mr. James V. Bennett, a veteran pigeoneer, informs 

 me that he remembers distinctly at the time of the dis- 

 appearance of the passenger pigeon of reading ac- 

 counts in different papers that the birds had gotten 

 into a dense fog while migrating, lost their direction of 

 flight and strayed out over the ocean and alighted in 

 such vast numbers on vessels that the passengers, fear- 

 ing for their own safety, were compelled to club the 

 birds off the vessels. The accounts also stated that the 

 dead pigeons were washed upon the shore in such quan- 

 tity that they w^ere from one to two feet deep in places. 



I feel that Mr. Bennett can give more facts concern- 

 ing the birds than any person with whom I am ac- 

 quainted, as from boyhood he has been familiar with 

 the habits of the birds, and from repeated conversa- 

 tions that I have had with him concerning the wild 

 pigeon, I have gathered the following information 

 which is not generally known : 



