£be Warbler 71 



spring up with such force that their weight would break the net, and a great 

 many of them would escape. Of course, the united force of so many hundred 

 Pigeons under a net would be very great. In netting them stool Pigeons 

 or live birds tied with a string were often used. The live birds would flutter 

 up into the air and then the hunters would pull them down again when they 

 saw the flock coming over so as to attract their attention, and down the flock 

 would come. 



I once knew a farmer who used to bait them in March by taking the 

 snow off the ground, and after the Pigeons got to coining there he would 

 shoot at them from a convenient blind. The gun was an old smooth-bore 

 rifle loaded with shot, which when discharged into a thick bunch of Pigeons 

 would cause tremendous slaughter. 



I have seen the Passenger Pigeons going through the woods like a blue 

 wave, rolling along, filling the woods with the sounds of their wings and 

 their voices. Those in the rear would be constantly flying over those ahead, 

 so that as they went through the woods picking up the beechnuts they look- 

 ed like a blue wave. You could hear them for half a mile. Their note 

 was at this time a very soft, child-like call like the voices of little girls, so 

 very soft and sweet was their piping. They would remain but a few clays 

 and were seldom ever seen later than April. When they first came they 

 were usually very tame, but would get exceedingly wild after they had been 

 fired at a few times. 



I think the last time they nested anywhere up in that section was in 

 1868, and then we shot the young Pigeons in June. They spread over the 

 country there near Roxbury eating sprouted beechnuts. The beechnuts by 

 that time, of course, had all sprouted and they spread through the woods 

 everywhere picking up these sprouted beechnuts, and we shot a good many. 

 I hunted with the boys and we killed a good many. 



The last Passenger Pigeon I ever saw, and which I killed, was in 1876. 

 It was a solitary one in the woods of the Hudson River valley. I was hunt- 

 ing and seeing the bird, killed it. 



Personal Recollections of the Passenger Pigeon 



By John Leivis Chi Ids 



1DO NOT remember of seeing a Passenger Pigeon in Franklin Co., 

 Maine, where I was born and lived until I was eleven years old. In 

 1867 my parents moved to Buckfield, Oxford Co., Me., and my home was 

 then upon a large farm. In the rear of the buildings was a large hill, partly 

 wooded and partly good pasture. In front was a long stretch of intervale or 

 meadow throusfh which flowed a small river known as the Nezinscott. On 



