DELAWARE VALLEY ORNITHOLOGICAL CLUB. 35 



matter of course they were promply greeted with a charge of 

 no. 6, from the old single-barrel and one bird was secured. This 

 flock contained about fifty birds. Again in March 1872 or 1873 

 during a stormy period my brother rushed into the house with 

 the ever-welcome information that a large flock of Pigeons had 

 just passed down the ridge in the direction of the Letchworth 

 Pines. Immediately two boys armed with shot guns were mov- 

 ing rapidly in that direction. It was a gloomy day and night 

 was near at hand when we reached the spot. I think I shall 

 never forget the sight that greeted our eyes. A giant Black Oak 

 stood in the midst of a thicket of small pines and chestnuts, its 

 huge form towering above the smaller trees, and its naked 

 branches literally covered with Pigeons. A few hasty whispers 

 and we moved cautiously through the pines until within 

 thirty yards of the tree, but before our guns could be properly 

 aimed there was a tremendous uproar, and they were off. Four 

 shots followed them and three birds fell to the earth. This 

 flock contained probably two hundred birds, and could our fire 

 have been properly directed great slaughter would no doubt have 

 followed. We had no flights of Pigeons within my recollection 

 at all comparable to those credited to the upper part of the 

 state, our flocks seldom exceeding fifteen birds. In the fifties, 

 however, as I am informed by Messrs. JohnS. Murray and Wm. 

 W, Morris, much larger flights occurred, and the wheat fields 

 were regularly visited by the birds. Mr. Murray tells me also 

 that when a boy attending the old Carr school a mile and a 

 quarter north of the present town of Wayne, he remembers old 

 Ben Wharton, continually shooting Pigeons from a great dead 

 oak tree that stood in the eastern end of the playground. At 

 every discharge, the scholars would persist in peeping out of 

 windows to the great annoyance of the teacher. Wharton was 

 quite a noted hunter, as was also Eli Roberts, a veteran of the 

 war of 1812, whom I well remember, wearing a tall hat and 

 doing his shooting with a flint-lock gun. He died about 1870. 

 Wild Pigeons always impressed me as having two principal 

 characteristics, timidity and stupidity. Usually they were very 

 timid and the snapping of a twig or the mere glimpse of a 

 person approaching, would start them in flight, and once when 



