The Passenger or Wild Pigeon 211 



the owner killed a hundred or more in one morning. The writer, during 

 the past forty years, has studied the birds of the vicinity of New York, and 

 in all that period has seen only one live Wild Pigeon. The writer's father 

 who lived at Tarrytown, N. Y., in his boyhood, has often told of the enor- 

 mous flocks of Pigeons he saw there, so great that in passing overhead the 

 sun was darkened as by a rain-cloud and the noise of their wings was like 

 thunder. 



Today the Wild Pigeon is so rare that the observation of a single indi- 

 vidual is considered noteworthy. 



The species continued abundant until about i860, when, as a result of 

 increasing slaughter for food, it began rapidly to diminish in numbers, and 

 no large flock has been recorded since 1888. Frank M. Chapman tells me 

 that as late as July, 1881, he saw Wild Pigeons used in large numbers at a 

 trap-shooting tournament held near New York City. The birds had been 

 netted in the West and were often so helpless from their confinement in 

 foul cages that they were unable to fly. William Brewster writes that in 

 1876 or 1877 there was a Pigeon-nesting near Petosky, Michigan, which 

 was twenty -eight miles long and averaged four miles in width. The dis- 

 appearance of so abundant a creature in so comparatively short time is a 

 surprising illustration of man's power in the animal world, when, for any 

 reason, his forces are directed toward a certain end. 



Wild Pigeons lived in flocks at all seasons, nesting, roosting and feeding 

 in enormous bodies. Wilson mentions a nesting colony which was several 

 miles in breadth and upwards of forty miles in extent ! The birds chose 

 preferably beech woods, and as many as ninety nests have been counted m 

 a single tree. The flock previously mentioned, estimated to contain over 

 two billion individuals, stretched from horizon to horizon, as far as the eye 

 could reach in every direction, and was four hours in passing a given point. 

 At all seasons, whether migrating, roosting or nesting. Pigeons were sub- 

 ject to attack by man. Their migrations were governed largely by the food 

 supply, acorns and beech-nuts constituting their chief fare, and when they 

 appeared at a certain place their destruction became the object of the day. 

 Many were shot, but by far the larger number were netted with the aid of 

 live decoys. Wilson tells of thirty dozen birds being captured at one spring 

 of the net. Audubon states that he knew a man who, in Pennsylvania, 

 netted 500 dozen Pigeons in one day. 



When roosting. Pigeons were attacked by men armed with guns, poles, 

 clubs, and even pots of sulphur, and wagon -loads of birds were killed 

 nightly. Similar methods of destruction were employed when the birds 

 were nesting. At this season the squabs were especially desired, and the 

 trees were shaken or felled to obtain them. When the wants of the hun- 

 ters had been supplied, droves of hogs were released beneath the nesting 

 trees to feed on the birds remaining. At one of the last large known Pig- 



