Voi.xxvun 



1911 



J Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. 439 



Canada during the summer, where they devour the corn, as they 

 eat acorns in Louisiana. The Canadians have used every art to 

 hinder them from doing so much mischief, but without success. 

 But if the inhabitants of those colonies were to go a fowling for 

 those birds in the manner that I have done, they would insensibly 

 destroy them. When they walk among the high forest trees, 

 they ought to remark under what trees the largest quantity of 

 dung is to be seen. Those trees being once discovered, the hunters 

 ought to go out when it begins to grow dark, and carry with them 

 a quantity of brimstone which they must set fire to in so many 

 earthen plates placed at regular distances under the trees. In a 

 very short time they will hear a shower of wood-pigeons falling 

 to the ground, which, by the light of some dried canes, they may 

 gather into sacks, as soon as the brimstone is extinguished. I 

 shall hear give an instance that proves not only the prodigious 

 number of those birds, but also their singular instinct. In one 

 of my journeys at land, when I happened to be upon the bank of 

 the river, I heard a confused noise which seemed to come along 

 the river from considerable distance below us. As the sound con- 

 tinued uniformly I embarked, as fast as I could, on board the 

 pettyaugre, with four other men, and steered down the river, 

 keeping in the middle, that I might go to any side that best suited 

 me. But how great was my surprise when I approached the place 

 from whence the noise came, and observed it to proceed from a 

 thick short pillar on the bank of the river. When I drew still 

 nearer to it, I perceived that it was formed by a legion of wood- 

 pigeons, who kept continually up and down successively among 

 the branches of an ever-green oak, in order to beat down the 

 acorns with their wings. Every now and then some alighted to 

 eat the acorns which they themselves or the others had beat down ; 

 for they all acted in common, and eat in common; no avarice nor 

 private interest appearing among them, but each labouring as 

 much for the rest as for himself." "The pigeons for their fine 

 flavour and delicacy are preferred by Europeans to those of any 

 other country." 



Of the same region T. Jeffreys writes in 1760; l "The number of 



i Jeffreys, T. The Natural and Civil History cf the French Dominions in North 

 and South America. 1760, Part I, p. 160. 



