THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 217 



Frank C. Kiess. a native of Warrensville, but now 

 a resident of this city, netted pigeons in his younger 

 days, and preserved his equipment, including a net 

 24 X 28 feet in size and made from flax raised by him- 

 self and spun by his aunts, Dorothy and Katherine 

 Kiess. The net, when completed, was stained in butter- 

 nut bark to resemble the color of the earth, so that 

 it would not be observed by the pigeons. 



James \^. Bennett, of the contracting firm of 

 James Y. Bennett & Co., followed the pigeons from 

 Oklahoma, their roost, to the creek valleys in this 

 vicinity where they nested, and made a business of 

 supplying the market with dead and live birds. In 

 those days the dead pigeons brought from 90 cents to 

 $2.00 a dozen. Many were shipped to Buffalo, and 

 other shooting clubs in cities, where they brought $2.25 

 a dozen. 



In his business as pigoneer, Mr. Bennett came in 

 ;lose touch with the methods of trappers. From the 

 time the pigeons started their spring flight from roosts 

 in Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, they were the prey 

 of netters and gunners until they reached their nesting 

 grounds on Potato Creek in McKean County, Cherry 

 Creek in Potter County and Tionesta and Blue Jay 

 Creeks in Elk County. Even in the nesting places raid- 

 ers sometimes disturbed the birds and slaughtered 

 them, leaving their eggs and young to perish. Mr. Ben- 

 nett states that in a single shot on a roost in Oklahoma, 

 he brought down forty-one birds, so thicklv were they 

 crowded among the trees on a roost that was said to 



