114 NATURAL HISTORY OF THE FARM 
leagues distant from here on the brink of the river (the 
Seneca) are eight or ten fine salt fountains in a small space. 
It is there that nets are spread for pigeons, and from seven to 
eight hundred are often taken at a single stroke of the net. 
Lake Tiohero (Cayuga), one of the two which joins our can- 
ton, is fully fourteen leagues long and one or two broad. It 
abounds in swans and geese all winter, and in spring one sees 
a continuous cloud of all sorts of game. The river which 
rises in the lake soon divides into different channels enclosed 
by prairies,-with here and there fine attractive bays of con- 
siderable extent, excellent places for hunting.” (Jesuit 
Relations for 1671-72). 
Of our fine native fowl, one, the 
turkey, has been domesticated; one, 
the wild pigeon has been wholly exter- 
minated; and most of the others have 
been hunted almost to the point of 
extinction. Game laws have served 
in the past merely to prolong a lit- 
tle their slaughter. If there be any 
hope of preserving unto future gener- 
ations the remnant of those game birds 
that still survive, it would seem to lie 
in the permanent reservations that are 
being established north and south, 
for their protection. 
The wild pigeon was the first of our 
fine game birds to disappear. Its 
social habits were its undoing, when 
once guns were brought to its pursuit. 
It flew in great, flocks which were 
conspicuous and noisy, and which the 
hunter could follow by eye and ear, 
Fic. 53. The wild passenger : 
pigeon. and mow down with shot at every 
