434 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. |_Oct. 



was one of these breeding-places, which was several miles in breadth, 

 and upwards of forty miles in length. In this tract, almost every 

 tree was furnished with nests, wherever the branches could acco- 

 modate them. The pigeons made their first appearance there 

 about the 10th of April, and left it altogether, with their young, 

 before the 25th of May. As soon as the young were fully grown, 

 and before they left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants, 

 from all parts of the adjacent country, came with waggons, axes, 

 beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater 

 part of their families, and encamped for several days at this im- 

 mense nursery.'" 



The Carolinas. 



In the Carolinas we have a few brief notes and two extended 

 accounts, the latter by Lawson and Wm. Bartram, who were 

 certainly two of the best of the earlier observers. 



In 1682 occur two notes by Ashe and Wilson. The first gives ! 

 the "Pigeons" as among the "Birds for Food, and pleasure of 

 Game," while the second says, l " Here are also in the woods, 

 great plenty of . . . .Turtle Doves, . . . .Piggeons." 



In 1714, John Lawson's famous 'History of Carolina' appeared. 

 First, in his 'Journal of a thousand Miles of Travel among the 

 Indians from South to North Carolina,' when near Sapona, he 

 encountered a flight of pigeons about which he remarks as follows: 2 

 " In the mean time, we went to shoot pigeons which were so numer- 

 ous in these parts that you might see many millions in a flock; 

 they sometimes split off the limbs of stout oaks and other trees 

 upon which they roost of nights. You may find several Indian 

 towns of not above seventeen houses, that have more than one 

 hundred gallons of pigeon's oil or fat; they using it with pulse 

 or bread as we do butter, and making the ground as white as a 

 sheet with their dung. The Indians take a light and go among 

 them in the night and bring away some thousands, killing them with 

 long poles, as they roost in the trees. At this time of the year, 



i Historical Collections of South Carolina. By B. R. Carroll. New York, 

 1836, Vol. II, pp. 73, 28. 



2 Lawson, John. The History of Carolina, etc. London, 1714. Reprinted 

 Raleigh, 1860, pp. 78-79, 222, 231-233. 



