230 UPLAND SHOOTING. 



eral feet with their struggling bodies. One of the largest 

 pigeon-roosts ever seen in the United States, was during 

 the year 1878, at Petoskey, Mich. Professor Roney 

 went to this roost for the purpose of protecting the birds, 

 so far as he could, from the slaughter carried on by the 

 attendants there. The reader can form an accurate idea 

 of the immensity of one of these roosts from the following 

 graphic description of Professor Roney: 



4 ' On reaching Petoskey, we found the condition of 

 affairs had not been magnified; indeed, it exceeded our 

 gravest fears. Here, a few miles north, was a pigeon- 

 nesting of irregular dimensions, estimated, by those best 

 qualified to judge, to be forty miles in length by three 

 to ten miles in width, probably the largest nesting that 

 has ever existed in the United States, covering some- 

 thing like 100,000 acres of land, and including not less 

 than 150,000 acres within its limits. At the hotel, we met 

 one we were glad to see, in the person of ' Uncle Len' 

 Jewell, of Bay City, an old woodsman and 'land- 

 looker.' Len had for several weeks been looking land 

 in the upper peninsula, and was on his return home. At 

 our solicitation, he agreed to remain for two or three 

 days, and cooperate with us. In the village, nothing else 

 seemed to be thought of but pigeons. It was the one 

 absorbing topic everywhere. The 'pigeoners' hurried 

 hither and thither, comparing market reports, and solic- 

 iting the latest quotations on 'squabs.' A score of 

 hands in the packing-houses were kept busy from day- 

 light until dark. Wagon-load after wagon -load of dead 

 and live birds hauled up to the station, discharged their 

 freight, and returned to the nesting for more. The 

 freight-house was filled with the paraphernalia of the 

 pigeon-hunter's vocation, while every train brought 

 acquisitions to their numbers, and scores of nets, stool- 

 pigeons, etc. The pigeoners were everywhere. They 



