CHAPTER XIII 

 What Became of the Wild Pigeon ? 



By Sullivan Cook, from "Forest and Stream," March 14, 1903.* 



WHEN a boy and living in northern Ohio, I 

 often had to go with a gun and drive the 

 pigeons from the newly sown fields of wheat. 

 At that time wheat was sown broadcast, and pigeons 

 would come by the thousands and pick up the wheat 

 before it could be covered with the drag. My father 

 would say, "Get the gun and shoot at every pigeon you 

 see," and often I would see them coming from the woods 

 and alighting on the newly sowed field. They would 

 alight until the ground was fairly blue with these beau- 

 tiful birds. 



I would secrete myself in a fence corner, and as these 

 birds would alight on the ground they would form them- 

 selves in a long row, canvassing the field for grain, and 

 as the rear birds raised up and flew over those in front, 

 they reminded one of the little breakers on the ocean 

 beach, and as they came along in this form, they re- 

 sembled a windrow of hay rolling across the field. 



* I think that anyone who reads this article will be, like myself, satisfied 

 that the destruction of the pigeons was wrought to gratify the avarice and 

 love of gain of a few men who slaughtered them until they were virtually 

 exterminated. — W. B. M. 



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