PASSENGER PIGEON IN IOWA 
23 
grain but also pulling up that which had sprouted. They also fre- 
quented the oak groves when feeding on the acorns. 
Every year during my boyhood scattering pairs were common every- 
where about the groves and big woods. It was the habit of these birds, 
when not sitting on the nests, to congregate in small hocks. In spring 
or during the summer these flocks flying about were of common oc- 
currence. The big flock in its migration would pass our way at some 
time nearly every year. It might be going in any direction. 
In those days wheat and oats were sown broadcast by hand. The 
sower would stride back and forth across the field, a sack of wheat 
slung over his shoulder, and his hand swinging steadily, scattering the 
grain. The sown grain was covered with a harrow or drag, which 
consisted of a frame of oak pieces in which were set steel teeth like 
large square spikes. When drawn over the ground the drag tore up 
the earth, mellowed it and covered the grain. Sometimes a brush drag 
was made by boring holes through an oak pole and inserting small 
brushy trees into the holes. 
When flocks of pigeons were about some one had to watch the field 
and '"shoo” them ofl'. Usually a boy was chosen, and more than once 
that was my job while father was at dinner. If not frightened away, 
a flock would light on the field and start walking across it, picking 
up the grain as it went. As those that were rinding grain were slowed 
by the process of picking it up, they soon found themselves at the 
rear end of the traveling flock and the grain all gone, which they 
remedied by flying over the other feeding birds and alighting in front, 
soon to be flown over in turn by the birds in the rear. So they went 
across the field almost as fast as a man could walk — like boys play- 
ing leapfrog- — but they cleaned up the newly sown grain. Not a kernel 
was left. Pieces of bright tin on sticks and poles and scare-crows of 
various kinds were also used to frighten them off. 
West of our farm {near Postville, Allamakee County) the wild lands 
were mostly covered with a young growth of : ‘jack oak" and poplar 
among which were standing the very scattered storm-and fire-scarred 
old seed trees of large size. I have seen these old trees so loaded 
down with resting or roosting pigeons that a limb would sometimes 
give way under their weight, and the tree would erupt the alarmed 
birds in a sort of exploding pigeon bomb. My father would tell of 
how he once in the dark of evening sneaked up through the brush 
below a tree and, shooting along an upward slanting limb, killed nine 
birds at one shot with his squirrel rifle. There was one particular 
group of old trees in which they habitually roosted. 
We used to try to get them with father’s method in the groves when 
they were filled with them, but the birds kept out of reach of our 
smooth-bore rifles loaded with shot, and we seldom got one. Once a 
couple of railroad men came out from town with double-barrel shot- 
guns, and I saw one of them bring down his bird as it was flying across 
the road through the grove. It seemed a wonderful shot to me then. 
One time when the grove on 'the eighty’ north of the new home was 
filled with the noisy mob of pigeons, I saw them coming down out of 
the trees in a feathered stream to drink out of a little pool of clear 
water with mud shore. They were all around it as thick as they could 
stand, and they drank without lifting their heads as a hen does. 
Perhaps nothing contributed more to exterminate the vast multi- 
tudes of the Passenger Pigeon than the systematic netting of them by 
professional pigeon catchers who followed them the year around wher- 
ever they went. The catch was sold without dressing the birds, and 
the buyer traveled with the flights of pigeons. Farmers who lived 
near by were hired to haul them to the nearest railroad station, where 
this buyer packed them in barrels or boxes, put a chunk of ice on top 
of them, and shipped them by express to Milwaukee or Chicago. I 
