1911 J Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. o49 



About forty years later (1583), Sir George Peckham in his 

 report of the discoveries of Sir Humfrey Gilbert in Newfound 

 Lands, mentions 1 "Stocke dooves" as one "Of [the] Birds." In 

 a narrative of the same expedition, Captain Edward Haies records 2 

 "rough footed like doves, which our men after one flight did kill 

 with cudgels, they were so fat and unable to flie." In 1607 Marke 

 Lescarbot, in speaking of He Saint Croix, not far from Port Royal, 

 says: 3 "We made there also good Pasties of Turtle Doves, 

 which are very plentifull in the Woods, but the grasse is there so 

 high that one could not find them when they were killed and fallen 

 in the ground." In the 'Third Voyage of Sieur de Champlain, 

 in the year 1611,' at the Falls of St. Louis: 4 "Once on St. Barnabas's 

 day, Sieur du Pare, having gone hunting with two others, killed 

 nine [stags]. They had also a very large number of pigeons." 

 In 1623 5 "Pigeon" is mentioned as one of the many sorts of birds 

 all along the Nova Scotian coast. The last note of this century 

 is by Sagard Theodat who says, 6 ' 'There are .... an infinite num- 

 ber of Turtle-doves, which they call Orittey, which feed in part on 

 acorns which they readily go at whole, and in part on other things." 

 Towards the close of the eighteenth century, we have three notes, 

 the first of which comes in 1770 when Wynne says that the 7 

 "Canadians have variety of game,. . . .vast flights of wild pigeons, 

 . . . ." The second record is one made by Madame De Riedesel. 

 who writes as follows : 8 ' 'On passing a wood, I was suddenly 

 roused from my reveries, by something that seemed like a cloud 

 before our carriage, until I discovered that it was a flight of wild 

 pigeons, of which there are such an abundance in Canada, that they 

 are for many weeks the exclusive food of the inhabitants, who 



i Ibid., p. 115. 



2 Prince Society Publications, Vol. XXXI, p. 136. 



3 Purchas, Samuel. Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas His Pilgrimes. Glasgow, 

 1905-7. Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, Vol. XVIII, p. 282. 



« Prince Soc. Publ., Vol. XIII, pp. 85, 86. 



5 Purchas, Samuel, Ibid., Vol. XIX, p. 399. 



6 Sagard Theodat, G. Le Grand Voyage du Pays des Hurons, 1632, Second 

 Partie. Chapter I, p. 303. 



7 Wynne, J. H. A General History of the British Empire in America: 2 vols., 

 London, 1770, Vol. II, p. 208. 



8 De Riedesel, Madame. Letters and Memoirs Relating to the War of American 

 Independence, etc. (orig. edit., 1800). Translated by M. de Wallenstein, New 

 York, 1S27, pp. 126, 127. 



