438 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. [.Oct. 



of seven weeks together, that every day wee killed with harque- 

 bush shot two hundred in the woods about our fort." In a de- 

 scription of Florida, 1587, this same captain enumerates * "Pigions, 

 Ringdoves, Turtles, . . . . " At the close of the sixteenth century 

 Daniel Coxe, in discussing the resources of the country, writes : 2 

 "I had almost forgotten to communicate two commodities, one 

 for the health, the other for the defence of our bodies .... The 

 latter is salt petre, which may probably be here procured cheap 

 and plentifully, there being at certain seasons of the year most 

 prodigious flights of pigeons, I have been assured by some who have 

 seen them, above a league long, and half as broad. These come, 

 many flocks successively, much the same course, roost upon trees 

 in such number that they often break the boughs and leave prodi- 

 gious heaps of dung behind them; from which, with good manage- 

 ment and very little expense, great quantities of the best saltpetre 

 may be extracted." In "Virginia richly valued, By the descrip- 

 tion of the mainland of Florida, her next neighbor", etc. (London, 

 1609), 3 "Pigeons" find a place. About a century and a half 

 later, 1753, a writer notes that 4 "Along the coast of New Billoxi, 

 one finds turtle doves. There is also in this country all kinds of 

 birds of passage: there are in winter ... wood pigeon...." 

 Five years later, in 1758, 'The History of Louisiana,' by M. LePage 

 Du Pratz, appeared in which the author recounts some of his 

 experiences with this species. 5 " The Wood-Pigeons are seen 

 in such prodigious numbers, that I do not fear to exaggerate, when 

 I affirm that they sometimes cloud the sun. One day on the banks 

 of the Mississippi I met with a flock of them so large, that before 

 they all passed, I had leisure to fire with the small piece four 

 times at them. But the rapidity of their flight was so great, that 

 though I do not fire ill, with my four shots I brought down but two. 

 These birds come to Louisiana only in the winter, and remain in 



1 Hakluyt Society, Extra Series, Vol. VIII, p. 451. 



2 Coxe, Daniel. A Description of the English Province of Carolana, By the 

 Spaniards called Florida, and by the French La Louisane, etc., In Hist. Coll. 

 Louisiana, By B. F. French. Part II, Philadelphia, 1850, p. 270. 



3 Force, Peter. Ibid., Vol. IV, 1846, p. 132. 



4 Memoires Historiqu.es sur la Louisiane. Paris, Torne Premier, 1753, p. 91. 



6 Du Pratz, INI. Le Page. The History of Louisiana. London edit., 1774, 

 pp. 278-280, 283, 196. 



