QUAIL, GROUSE, ETC. 173 



were, however, rather irregular in their habits, and the cen- 

 ter of abundance within historic times was in the North 

 Central States. They were best known from Kentucky, 

 through the accounts of Wilson and Audubon, and in jNIich- 

 igan, where the birds had their last known stronghold, and 

 where the last considerable flight was observ^ed, in 1888. In 

 Kentucky they bred and occasionally wintered in such num- 

 bers that Wilson once computed a single flight at ujjwards 

 of two billions. Since the pigeons appeared absolutely 

 countless, their destruction was carried forward upon a 

 colossal scale. Men gathered them with nets and knocked 

 them down wth poles, or felled trees to secure the fat 

 squabs. At Pentwater, Michigan, people lined the cliffs 

 and beat them down with sticks as they passed the crest of 

 the ridge, until the ground was heaped with countless thou- 

 sands. Powder and shot were deemed unnecessary, although 

 fifty-nine pigeons are reported as killed by one discharge of 

 a shotgun. 



" In 1878 Prof. H. B. Roney wrote in the Chicago Field 

 (Vol. X, pp. 345-347) : 



" * The nesting area situated near Petoskey included not 

 less than 150,000 acres within its limits. The number of the 

 dead birds sent by rail was estimated at 12,500 daily, or 

 1,500,000 for the summer, besides 80,352 live birds; and an 

 equal number was sent by water. We have,' says the writer, 

 'adding the thousands of dead and wounded ones not 

 secured, and the myriads of squabs left dead in the nest, 

 at the lowest possible estimate, a grand total of 1,000,000,- 

 000 pigeons sacrificed to mammon during the nesting of 

 1878.' 



