54 Cincinnati Society of Natural History. 



been feeding on ''poke berries" {Phytolacca decandra) so that 

 all the fluids of the body were stained with the bright-colored 

 juice of these berries. 



The size of the birds and the lateness of the season led me 

 to the conclusion that they were of a second brood and that 

 they were double brooded. 



I was acquainted with a couple of men named Cone and 

 Barr, who made a business of trapping wild pigeons. They 

 followed the birds over the country, netting them for the mar- 

 ket. To decoy them down to the nets, they used "stool pig- 

 eons." These were wild birds which they kept for the purpose 

 in cages. They were made blind temporarily by stitching up 

 their eyelids with a loop of thread. When a flock of birds 

 were seen approaching, the blinded ones were thrown up in the 

 air in front of the nets, and the birds, not being able to see, 

 fluttered down, generally decoying and bringing the flock to 

 the ground. The stool birds could not escape, as a string was 

 attached to the leg. Other decoy birds were enclosed in net 

 coops placed so the approaching birds could see and hear them. 

 These men assured me that if they got any at all, they generally 

 secured the entire flock. This was in the spring, near the 

 roosting and breeding grounds. 



The captured birds were killed by having the neck pinched 

 and dislocated. They were shipped all over the country in 

 barrels if dead, or in crates if shipped alive. A shooting club 

 that shot at the trap in the old Queen City Trotting Park, used 

 them for targets. Whole crates were used in this way, and 

 most of them were mangled with shot as they rose from the 

 trap into the air. 



The traps used at that time were made of a long, slender 

 piece of hickory for a spring, on the end of which was nailed 

 a box with a hinged lid. When the spring was bent down the 

 lid was held shut; when the spring was liberated, it flew up 

 with great force, throwing the imprisoned bird into the air, 



In this connection, I have noticed that the wild pigeon, when 

 thrown into the air, quickly righted itself and made a bee line 



12 



