136 The Passenger Pigeon 



from Indian Territory, so I think the netters finally 

 cleaned up what was left of the big flight that perished 

 from the sleet and fog at their last nesting in Michigan, 

 near Petoskey, in 1881. 



Their nests were built and eggs laid in late April. A 

 big wind and storm of sleet came up just at dusk and 

 the birds left; there was a big fog on Lake Michigan, 

 and the birds were swallowed up by the storm ; anyhow 

 they disappeared then and there. I have heard tell of 

 the beach being strewn for miles with dead pigeons, and 

 I heard an old woodsman tell of the stench arising from 

 dead pigeons in the woods. 



It was that storm of ice that surely wiped them out. 



I was at Petoskey in 1882, and no pigeons showed up 

 that year. 



What a host of memories of boyhood days are re- 

 called, when one thinks of the wild pigeons. I can see 

 myself a boy again, equipped with a long, single barrel 

 shot gun, shot pouch and powder flask a-dangling, a 

 box of G.D. caps in my pocket, and I a-sneakin' and 

 a-sneakin' up for a shot at an old cock pigeon perched 

 away up on a dead limb at the top of a tall tree. How 

 handsome is that old cock with neck outstretched and 

 tail a-streamin', the richness of his coloring, the red of 

 the breast, the metallic sheen of that outstretched neck 

 is of marvelous luster as bathed in the glories of the 

 morning sunlight. He turns his head! He is onto 

 that boy who is sneaking so carefully along the old 



