° "1910 J A. H. Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. 433 



In 1698, Hennepin, the first to describe Niagara Falls, says ' 

 the lower Mississippi "Country affords all sorts of Game, as 



Turkey-Cocks, , and Wood Pidgeons; " And, on his 



return eastward from Niagara he says, "We had still Fourscore 

 Leagues to go upon the Lake Ontario before we cou'd arrive at 



Fort Catarokouri or Frontenac; We wanted then neither 



Powder nor Shot, and therefore shot at random all that we met, 

 either small Birds, or Turtles, and Wood-Pigeons, which were then 

 coming from Foreign Countries in so great Numbers, that they 

 did appear in the Air like Clouds." 



This same year (1698), Gabriel Thomas in "An Historical and 

 Geographical Account of the Province and Country of Pensil- 

 vania and West "New Jersey in America. London, 1698," finds 

 (p. 13) " in (the) place there are an Infinite Number of Sea and Land 

 Fowl, of most sorts, viz. Swans, . . . .Pidgeons " 



Three years later Charles Wolley in "A Two Years Journal in 

 New York. London, 1701," (New York ed., 1860, p. 37) practi- 

 cally repeats the same observation, namely, "They have great 

 store of wild-fowl, as Turkeys, .... Pigeons, . . . . " 



Some time passes before we come to Daniel Coxe's " A Descrip- 

 tion of the English Province of Carolina, etc. London, 1726" 

 where we have the following (2nd edit., p. 79) : " Great companies 



of Turkies, Pidgeons, " Again in 1732, "A Letter From 



South Carolina, etc.," speaks much to the same effect (2nd edit., 

 London, p. 13): "There are. .. .great variety of Wild-Fowl, as 

 Turkeys,. . . .wild Pigeons,. ..." 



In 1744 Charlevoix in his History of New France enumerates 

 the wild pigeons as occurring in Florida ^ but only once,^ speaks 

 of them in detail. " The pigeons are there (New France), as else- 

 where, birds of passage. A missionary observed, in an Iroquois 

 canton, that every morning, from six o'clock till eleven, the air 

 above the gorge in the river, about a quarter of a league wide, was 

 seen to be completely darkened by the number of these birds; 

 that afterwards they all descended to bathe in a large pond near 



' Hennepin, L. A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, etc. London, 

 1698, pp. 1.37, 225. 



2 Charlevoix, Rev. P. F. X. De. History of New France, 1744. Translated by 

 J. G. Shea. New York, 1866. Vol. I, p. 140. 



3 Ibid., Vol. II, p. 192. 



