THE OHIO DISTRICT 217 



about the beginning of April. It is when in this condition 

 that it is most acceptable to the pigeons. It is not every 

 year that there is an abundance of beech nuts. When 

 they are scanty the birds move to another district when 

 the first brood of young ones are reared ; but when the 

 nuts are abundant they raise two or more broods in the 

 same nests. They always breed several times each 

 season, and more frequently when food is abundant than 

 when it is scarce. The number of eggs laid to each 

 sitting is invariably two, and the eggs are a pure chalk- 

 white in colour. The hen sits very close, and if she loses 

 her mate will starve to death rather than leave her eggs ; 

 but the cock, who feeds her on the nest, does not roost 

 in the tree with her, or on trees at all. Strange to relate, 

 the cocks go nightly to the juniper-swamps, and roost 

 on the bushes, within a dozen or sixteen feet of the 

 ground, breaking down the bushes by hundreds, as I 

 have myself witnessed. This habit is a cause of tens of 

 thousands of them being destroyed by being knocked 

 down at night with poles. They are also netted in 

 myriads ; but the killing with poles is the favourite way 

 with the lower classes of slaughterers, and with rough 

 boys. Formerly the pigeon-murder was designated, like 

 the corn-cobbing, " a frolic " ; but now the pigeons are 

 not in sufficient numbers, and wander so much from 

 their old breeding-places that there are pigeon-frolics 

 no more. 



At these frolics the slaughter was simply awful ; and 

 it is marvellous that the Creator of these birds did not 

 visit with a judgment the wanton murderers. Millions 

 of the birds were killed from pure love of blood. It must 

 have been so, for they were left to rot on the ground. 

 The herds of pigs battened on the carcasses till, in some 

 instances, they were too much gorged to move, and in 

 others were driven to another part of the forest lest they 

 should kill themselves with satiety. Every child who 

 could handle a gun — and children of nine or ten years 



