360 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. [.July 



Thirty-two dozen pigeons were taken at Sunnebeek [Pond, Barretts- 

 town] at one spring of the net." In 1798, August 30, at Livermore, 

 Me., "[his host] had just sprung his net on six dozen pigeons and 

 took them all. To take a whole flock is a common thing with him." 



In 1804 "pigeons" were mentioned as among the feathered kind 

 in the Stockbridge Indian Country. 1 In 1815, in Carver, Mass., 2 

 "Wood pigeons .... are Common," as were they in Rochester, 

 Mass., the same year. In the latter place, the writer says, 3 "Wild 

 pigeons annually seek these woods and are very common in this 

 town in August." In a footnote he adds: "Some of the peculiari- 

 ties of this bird, it is said, are to visit marshes for mud, very early 

 in the morning. They fly, it is computed, at the rate of a mile a 

 minute, leaving the sea coast, by 8 or 9 o'clock A. M. going with 

 this rapidity, occasionally resting in intervening forests far into 

 the interior of the country. This habit is well known about 

 Medford, where they are caught on the marshes by live pigeon 

 decoys." 



In the first volume of Timothy Dwight's 'Travels,' etc. (New 

 Haven, 1821, 1822, p. 55), it is said: "Pigeons are (considered 

 amongst) the Land birds principally coveted at the tables of 

 luxury." Shortly after (1824) Zadock Thompson, so well known 

 to zoologists, barely mentions (p. 18) the "pigeon" as a "bird of 

 passage" in his 'A Gazetteer of the State of Vermont,' but in 1842 

 he gives it more attention: 4 "The American Wild Pigeon is met 

 with in greater or less numbers throughout the whole region from 

 Mexico to Hudson's Bay. These birds are remarkably gregarious 

 in their habits, almost always flying, roosting and breeding in 

 large flocks. When the country was new there were many of 

 their roosts and breeding places in this state." (Then follow 

 Hazen's and Williams's accounts.) 



Finally, in 1846, Beckley gives us the following: 5 "In the early 

 settlement, of the state, wild pigeons were wonderfully plenty. 



i Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., First Series, Vol. IX, p. 100. 



2 Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, Vol. IV. 1S16, p. 275. 



s Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Second Series, Vol. IV, 1816, p. 256. 



4 Thompson, Zadock. History of Vermont, Natural, Civil and Statistical. 

 Burlington, Vt., 1842. Part I. p. 100. 



5 Beckley, Rev. Hosea. The History of Vermont. Brattleboro, 1846, pp. 304, 

 305. 



