24 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



squab is 13 days old it is as round and fat as a butter-ball, and 

 is left to itself by its parents. Tbe woods are constantly full of 

 these comical looking birds during tbe nesting time. They 

 cannot fly for two or three days, and during that interval they 

 tumble and stagger about like tipsy men. By and by they find 

 their wings. These helpless squabs are virtually ' scooped up ' 

 by the thousand and shipped to market. They are worth $3 a 

 dozen. A pair of pigeons hatch three broods before the roost 

 breaks up. Then the mass of birds separate and go to all parts 

 of the country in isolated flocks that are seen from late in the 

 Spring until Fall. In November they gather together and seek 

 a common home for the Winter." 



" Before glass balls and clay pipes ever came into use profes- 

 sional netters made an especial business of capturing the bird 

 alive. One netter, who always appears with the birds in Forest 

 County, frequently netted and disposed of 50,000 birds in a 

 single season to sportsmen's clubs to be used in shooting 

 matches. That branch of the business has now shrunk to 

 small proportions. Netting pigeons is a simple and effective 

 method of capturing the birds by wholesale." The rest of the 

 paragraph describes the method of netting, by which a net, 

 "sometimes 20 by 40 feet in extent " is attached to two hickory 

 poles, which have one end fastened flat on the ground. Then 

 the poles with the net are bent back and fastened to two stakes, 

 in such a way that they can be sprung by a rope from ambush. 

 The ground over which the net is to spring " is spaded up and 

 scattered over with salt or buckwheat." "Wild pigeons," he 

 states, " are fond of salt, as an old woodman discovered by see- 

 ing them gather about the salt springs in Michigan 10 years 

 ago." " If the netter is operating before the pigeons are nest- 

 ing, ' ' he uses ' ' a pigeon with a long string tied to its leg. ' ' 

 The bird by its fluttering attracts the pigeons to the food. 

 During nesting time "a stool pigeon is used", which is always 

 blinded by sewing its eyelids together to prevent it from seeing 

 and giving warning to the wild birds. "As many as 1,100 

 pigeons have been caught by a single springing of a net." 



" In spite of all the destruction that weather, netters, hunters, 

 hawks, crows, and other enemies of the wild pigeon work in a 



