Vol.XXVIII 

 1911 



j Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. 437 



neighboring Bay swamp; they take them by torch light; they have 

 particular roosting places, where they associate in incredible 

 multitudes at evening, on low trees and bushes, in hommocks or 

 higher knolls in the interior parts of vast swamps. Many people 

 go out together on this kind of sport, when dark; some take with 

 them little fascines of fat Pine splinters for torches; others sacks 

 or bags; and other furnish themselves with poles or staves; thus 

 accoutered and prepared, they approach their roosts, the sudden 

 blaze of light confounds, blinds and affrights the birds, whereby 

 multitudes drop off the limbs to the ground, and others are beaten 

 off with their staves, which by the sudden consternation, are en- 

 tirely helpless, and easily taken and put into the sacks. It is 

 chiefly the sweet small acorns of the Quercus phillos, Quercus 

 aquatica, Quercus sempervirens, Quercus flammula, and others, 

 which induced these birds to migrate in the autumn to those 

 Southern regions; where they spend their days agreeably, and 

 feast luxuriously, during the rigour of the colds in the North, 

 whither they return at the approach of summer to breed." 



At the close of the century John Davis, in a 'Journey from 

 Charleston to Coosahatchie,' remarks: 1 "Sometimes we fired in 

 vollies at the flocks of doves that frequent the corn fields; . . . ." 

 Finally, in 1809, David Ramsay gives 2 "the pigeon" as one of 

 the "birds of passage," in South Carolina. 



The Gulf States. 



In this region the pigeon record begins early. In Florida, as 

 early as 1567, Rene Laudonniere and his associates "fortified and 

 inhabited there two Summers and one whole Winter." Of this 

 period they say: 3 "In the meane while there came unto our fort 

 a flocke of stocke-doves in so great number, and that for the space 



1 Davis, John. Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of Amer- 

 ica during 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802. London, 1803. New York edition, 

 1909, by A. J. Morrison, p. 91. 



2 Ramsay, David. The History of South Carolina, etc. Charleston, 1809, 

 Vol. II, p. 333, 334. 



3 Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations Voyages Traffiques and Dis- 

 coveries of the English Nation. Glasgow edit., 1903-1905. Hakluyt Society, 

 Extra Series, Vol. IX, p. 53. 



