20 The Passenger Pigeon 



second bank of the river. These continued passing for 

 more than a quarter of an hour, and at length varied 

 their bearing so as to pass over the mountain, behind 

 which they disappeared before the rear came up. 



In the Atlantic States, though they never appear in 

 such unparalleled multitudes, they are sometimes very 

 numerous, and great havoc is then made amongst them 

 with the gun, the clap net, and various other imple- 

 ments of destruction. As soon as it is ascertained in a 

 town that the pigeons are flying numerously in the 

 neighborhood, the gunners rise en masse, the clap nets 

 are spread out on suitable situations, commonly on an 

 open height in an old buckwheat field; four or five live 

 pigeons, with their eyelids sewed up, are fastened on a 

 movable stick — a small hut of branches is fitted up for 

 the fowler at the distance of forty or fifty yards — ^by 

 the pulling of a string the stick on which the pigeons 

 rest is alternately elevated and depressed, which pro- 

 duces a fluttering of their wings similar to that of birds 

 just alighting; this being perceived by the passing flocks 

 they descend with great rapidity, and, finding corn, 

 buckwheat, etc., strewed about, begin to feed, and are 

 instantly, by the pulling of a cord, covered by the net. 

 In this manner ten, twenty, and even thirty dozen have 

 been caught at one sweep. Meantime the air is 

 darkened with large bodies of them moving in various 

 directions ; the woods also swarm with them in search of 

 acorns ; and the thundering of musketry is perpetual on 



