SPECIES EXTINCT OR EXTIRPATED. 437 



birds began in New England within fifty years after the first 

 settlement at Plymouth. It went on for more than two hun- 

 dred years. Nevertheless, they were still quite numerous 

 about the beginning of the nineteenth century. 



Lewis and Newhall, writing of those early days in the 

 History of Lynn (1866, p. 45), state that a single family "has 

 been known to have killed one hundred dozens of these birds 

 with poles and other weapons." 



Belknap (1792), in his History of New Hampshire, says 

 they "come in the spring, from the southward, in large flocks, 

 and breed in our woods, during the summer months." Richard 

 Hazzen, who surveyed the Province line in 1741, remarks: 

 " ' For three miles together, the pigeons nests were so thick, 

 that five hundred might have been told on the beech trees at 

 one time; and could they have been counted on the hemlocks, 

 as well, I doubt not but five thousand, at one turn round.' 

 This was on the western side of the Connecticut River and 

 eastward of the Deerfield River [and probably extended into 

 Massachusetts]. Since the clearing of the woods the num- 

 ber of pigeons is diminished." ^ 



One of the earliest settlers at Clarendon, Vt., stated that 

 immense numbers of Pigeons nested there. The trees were 

 loaded with nests, and the noise made by the birds at night 

 was so troublesome that the traveller could get no sleep. 

 Settlers often cut down trees, and gathered a horse-load of 

 squabs in a few minutes. ^ 



In the History of Wells and Kennebunk, Me., it is stated 

 that from the first settlement to 1820 Pigeons in innumerable 

 numbers haunted the woods near the sea. In their season 

 they furnished food for many families.^ 



Isaac Weld, Jr. (1799), relates that a resident of Niagara, 

 while sailing from that town to Toronto (forty miles), saw a 

 great flight of Pigeons coming from the north which continued 

 throughout the voyage, and the birds were still coming from 

 the north in large bodies after he reached Toronto.^ 



1 Belknap, Jeremy: History of New Hampshire, 1792, Vol. Ill, pp. 171, 172. 



2 Williams, Samuel: The Natural and Civil History of Vermont, 1809, Vol. I, p. 137. 



3 Bourne, Edward E.: History of Wells and Kennebunk, 1875, pp. 563,564. 



1 Weld, Isaac, Jr.: Travels through the States of North America, etc., during the years 1795, 1796, 

 1797, London, ISOO, Vol. II, p. 43. 



