380 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



"The multitudes of wild pigeons in our 

 woods are astonishing. Indeed, after 

 having viewed them so often and under 

 so many circumstances, I even now feel 

 inclined to pause and assure myself that 

 what I am going to relate is fact. Yet 

 I have seen it all, and that, too, in the 

 company of persons who, like myself, 

 were struck with amazement. 



"In the autumn of 1813 I left my house 

 at Henderson, on the banks of the Ohio, 

 on my way to Louisville. In passing over 

 the barrens, a few miles beyond Hardens- 

 burgh, I observed the pigeons flying from 

 northeast to southwest in greater num- 

 bers than I thought I had ever seen th^m 

 before, and feeling an inclination to count 

 the flocks that might pass within tl.^ 

 reach of my eye in one hour, I dis- 

 mounted, seated myself on an eminence, 

 and began to mark with my pencil, mak- 

 ing a dot for every flock that passed. In 

 a short time, finding the task which I had 

 undertaken impracticable, as the birds 

 poured on in countless multitudes, I rose, 

 and counting the dots then put down, 

 found that 163 had been made in 21 

 minutes. I traveled on and still met more 

 the farther I proceeded. The air was 

 literally filled with pigeons; the light of 

 noonday was obscured as by an eclipse; 

 the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting 

 flakes of snow, and the continued buzz 

 of wings had a tendency to lull my senses 

 to repose. 



"Before sunset I reached Louisville, 

 distant from Hardensburgh 55 miles. 

 The pigeons were still passing in undi- 

 minished numbers and continued to do 

 so for three days in succession. The 

 people were all in arms. The banks of 

 the Ohio were crowded with men and 

 b)oys, incessantly shooting at the pilgrims, 

 which there flew lower as they passed the 



river. Multitudes were thus destroyed. 

 For a week or more the population fed 

 on no other flesh than that of pigeons 

 and talked of nothing but pigeons." 



FURTHER TESTIMONY 



So, too, Elliott Coues, writing in 1897 

 in his "Key to North American Birds," 

 Vol. II, page 712, comments on their 

 threatened extinction thus : 



"We do not now have the millions that 

 the earlier writers speak of in the eastern 

 United States, and no contract for serv- 

 ice has for many years included a clause 

 that the hireling should not be fed too 

 often on wild pigeons or salmon ; but I 

 remember one great flight over Washing- 

 ton, D. C, when I was a boy, about 1858, 

 and I witnessed in 1873 another, of count- 

 less thousands, on Red River of the 

 North. The greatest roosts and flights 

 we now (1897) hear of are in the upper 

 Mississippi Valley, though some of the 

 birds may still breed in various wooded 

 places all along our northern border and 

 northward to Hudson's Bay. The wild 

 pigeon seems now a passenger to happier 

 hunting-grounds than it or the Indian 

 has ever found in this country in the 

 wake of the bison and the fur seal. It 

 has been often subjected to merciless and 

 almost wanton destruction by hundreds 

 of thousands at a single roost in a single 

 season; and, if it is not entirely extermi- 

 nated soon, it will be only because there 

 are too few left to pay for persecution." 



From su;h a fate the McLean law has 

 saved our ducks and geese, and, as its 

 administration will be in the hands of 

 the U. S. Department of Agriculture, it 

 is certain that adequate steps will be 

 taken to conserve and increase what is 

 undoubtedly a great national asset. 



