440 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. [oct. 



wood-pigeons which swarm here in winter, and in Canada, where 

 they remain till autumn is astonishing; in Louisiana they feed 

 upon acorns, in Canada they do much mischief by devouring the 

 grain. They may be taken by finding out their recesses, and 

 fumigating them with brimstone in the night. By this means 

 they fall from the branches in heaps, and torches should also be 

 provided to frighten them, and afford light at the same time for 

 collecting them." 



In Georgia, in 1776, they observed that 1 "when it is very cold 

 weather in the northern parts of America, here are vast flights 

 of wild pigeons, which are very easy to shoot." In upper Louisi- 

 ana Stoddard (1812) finds that the 2 "forests...., according to 

 the best accounts, contain about a hundred and thirty species of 

 birds. The most useful of them are several kinds of ducks .... 

 the pigeon, . . . . " In Texas, Kennedy, writing in 1841, says 3 

 " the sportsman, . . . .will also find on land good store of . . . pigeons 

 . . . .suited to the table." 



Central States East of the Mississippi River. 



In this wide region many interesting records occur of which 

 the following are doubtless only a small portion. Daniel Coxe, 

 in speaking of the country about Lake Erie, enumerates the 4 

 "pigeons" among his "wild animals of this country." In 1698 

 Hennepin, when on the River Ouisconsin, found that 5 " Six Charges 

 of Powder was all that we had left, which oblig'd us to husband it 

 as well as we could; wherefore we divided it into twenty to shoot 

 only for the future at Turtles or Wild Pigeons." 



In 1769, Bossu says: 6 "When one approaches the country of 

 the Illinois, one sees, during the day, clouds of doves, a kind of 



i The History of North America. London, 1776, p. 225. 



2 Stoddard, Major Amos. Sketches Historical and Descriptive of Louisiana. 

 Phila., 1812, p. 231. 



3 Kennedy, Wm. Texas: etc. 2nd edit., London, 1841, Vol. I, p. 130. 



4 Coxe, Daniel. Vide supra, p. 261. 



5 Hennepin, L. A New Discovery of a Vast Country in America, etc. London, 

 1698, p. 193. 



6 Bossu, M. Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occidentales. Premiere Partie, 

 Amsterdam, 1769, pp. 96, 97. 



