22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



of the article seems to be the "professional pigeon netters, who 

 make it a business to keep posted on the movements of wild 

 pigeons and to follow them wherever they may fix their roost- 

 ing and nesting places." He adds that "all of the common 

 wild pigeons in this country form one great colony " and when- 

 ever the food conditions are favorable, ' ' the entire body of pigeons 

 nest ... in one locality. ' ' He admits, however, that " it is 

 generally arranged by the birds . . to nest in two or three colo- 

 nies in different parts of the country," and continues, "the 

 last time the Pennsylvania beech was populated by the main 

 body of visiting birds was in 1880, when they filled five miles 

 square of the woods in Forest County. The roost this Spring 

 in those woods is much smaller in dimensions. In 1880 the 

 birds began to arrive in the woods as early as February, and 

 for two weeks there was a ceaseless influx. The snow was still 

 deep in the woods, and the pigeons swept down upon it by the 

 million and by using their wings uncovered the buried beech 

 nuts. Untold thousands perished from starvation and cold 

 during the first two weeks of the roost." 



' ' Another large division of the main colony sought feeding 

 grounds that year in Indian Territory, and another in the Mich- 

 igan woods, but the woods in Pennsylvania was so much larger 

 than the others, and so easy of access and convenient to the 

 market, that the professional netters came from all parts of the 

 country to Forest County. The roost broke up in the latter 

 part of April, and in that time more than $200,000 was received 

 by netters and hunters for pigeons and squabs killed and netted 

 in the woods. The main body of the wild pigeon colony of 

 North America nested in Forest County in 1867, 1868, 1871, 

 1878 and 1880. It is this year in Missouri. Twenty-five years 

 ago the beech woods of Sullivan County, N. Y., less than a hun- 

 dred miles from New York City, were still so extensive that the 

 main body of the colony roosted there as it had done in that 

 county and in the adjoining counties of WajJ^ne and Pike, Penn., 

 at intervals, ever since the earliest days of the white settlements. 

 It is not because these birds are becoming extinct that they are 

 seldom seen nowadays in localities where they were abundant a 

 few years ago, although they are ruthlessly destroyed every 



