450 GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



birds and bring them to the ground. An assortment of 

 weapons was brought into service. When the birds nested in 

 the primeval birch woods of the north, the people set fire to 

 the loose hanging bark, which flamed up like a great torch, 

 until the whole tree was ablaze, scorching the young birds, 

 and causing them to leap from their nests to the ground in 

 their dying agonies. 



At the great nesting places both Indians and white men 

 felled the trees in such a way that the larger trees, in falling, 

 broke down the smaller ones and threw the helpless squabs to 

 the ground. The squabs were gathered, their heads pulled 

 off, their bodies thrown into sacks, and large droves of hogs 

 were turned in, to fatten on those which could not be used. 



Sometimes, when the Pigeons flew low, they easily were 

 knocked down with poles and oars swung in the direction of 

 their flight or across it, and in early days thousands were killed 

 with poles at the roosts. Pike, on a trip from Leech River to 

 St. Louis, on April 28, 1806, stopped at a Pigeon roost, and in 

 about fifteen minutes his men knocked on the head and brought 

 aboard two hundred and ninety-eight Pigeons.^ 



As soon as it was learned in a town that the Pigeons were 

 roosting or nesting in the neighborhood, great nets were set in 

 the fields, baited with grain or something attractive to the 

 birds. Decoy birds were used, and enormous numbers of 

 Pigeons were taken by springing the nets over them; while 

 practically every able-bodied citizen, men, women, children 

 and servants, turned out to " lend a hand " either in killing 

 the Pigeons or in hauling away the loads of dead birds. 



Wherever the Pigeons nested near the settlements, they 

 were pursued throughout the summer by hunters and boys. 

 Kalm, in his account of the species (1759), states that several 

 extremely aged men told him that during their childhood there 

 were many more Pigeons in New Sweden during summer than 

 there were when he was there. He believed that the Pigeons 

 had been " either killed off or scared away." In either case 

 their decrease was evident at that early date. 



' Pike, Zebulon Montgomery: The Expeditions of, during the years 1805-07, by Elliott Coues, 1S95, 

 Vol. I, p. 212. 



