20 6 PASSENGER PIGEON. 



flock, thirty or forty yards in width, sweeping along, very low, 

 between the house and the mountain, or height, that formed 

 the 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 implements of destruction. As 

 soon as it is ascertained in a town that the pigeons are flying 

 numerously in the neighbourhood, 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 produces a fluttering of their 

 wings similar to that of birds just alighting ; this being per- 

 ceived by the passing flocks, they descend with great rapidity, 

 and finding corn, buckwheat, &c, 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 all sides from morning 

 to night. Waggon loads of them are poured into market, 

 where they sell from fifty to twenty-five, and even twelve 

 cents, per dozen ; and pigeons become the order of the day 

 at dinner, breakfast, and supper, until the very name becomes 

 sickening. "When they have been kept alive, and fed for 

 some time on corn and buckwheat, their flesh acquires great 

 superiority ; but, in their common state, they are dry and 

 blackish, and far inferior to the full-grown young ones, or squabs. 



