have seen half a wagon-load of dead birds lying beside the bough house 
of a catcher — one day's work. The price paid for the catch was figured 
by the dozen birds. 
Tile buyers kept well advised of the movements of the pigeons by 
telegraph, and knew where they were nesting or where food was plenti- 
ful; wherever the pigeons went, the catchers followed them relentlessly 
to the end, spring, summer, fall and winter. 
The equipment of one of these pigeon catchers consisted of a net 
12 by 20 feet with one-inch mesh; a half-inch rope about 100 feet 
long; a “pigeon-stool”; four “hub stakes"; two “sticks"; three or four 
“stool pigeons" in a small cage; a hatchet; and an extra shirt or two 
and socks. Coming by rail to a town near where the pigeons were 
either nesting or feeding in numbers, the catchers would take their 
outfit in a grain sack (with the exception of the little cage) and scatter 
out into the country, sometimes going for miles before they found 
what to them looked like good places for setting the nets. A field 
surrounded by scattering groves was usually considered a good place. 
A feed-bed the size of the net was first made, and some grain ob- 
tained from a nearby farmer was scattered over it. The net was then 
spread over this bed, and two of the corners were fastened to two of 
the hub stakes driven into the ground. Then two spring poles were 
set in line with the opposite side of the net and 50 feet or more from 
the part of the net opposite the corners fastened to the hub stakes. 
The rope was then fastened to the spring poles, around one of which 
a “bough house” of leafy brush and grass had been built. The other 
two hub stakes were then set at the length of the sticks from the 
first stakes and toward the center of the net. The net was then “set" 
by pulling it over to the first huh stakes, into a sort of loose roll, and 
fastening it there with the notched sticks. One end of the sticks was 
butted against the hub stakes toward the center, and the other end 
which held the rope was kept down by a notch in the corner hub stakes. 
The whole was so arranged that a pull on the rope by the catcher in 
the bough house would release the net, which, when thrown, up by 
the sticks as they turned over and pulled by the spring of the poles 
to which the rope was attached, would flop quickly over the bed, pin- 
ning down the luckless pigeons that were feeding there. 
The pigeon-stool was a light, stick with a shorter piece attached at 
right angles, the whole being fastened by a hinge on a stake driven 
into the ground. At the end opposite the hinge was a small round 
hoop covered with netting. To this hoop the stool pigeon was fastened. 
A string was attached as shown in the diagram, and ran from the con- 
trivance to the bough house. Hie device was operated by pulling the 
string slowly, thus lifting the end on which the stool pigeon was 
fastened, and then letting it drop suddenly. When the bird felt him- 
self falling, he would flutter his wings in trying to fly. To his mates 
passing over this looked like a bird feeding on the ground. If they 
were hungry they were quite sure to circle and come down. Some- 
times they would drop down without circling — but to their fate. 
The catcher also made use of a couple of “fliers" as decoys. They 
were birds whose eyelids had been fastened together with a thread 
or had been blindfolded. Fach was fastened to the bough house by 
about 50 feet of fish-line. As they could not see they would sit per- 
fectly quiet wherever they were placed. When the catcher saw a 
flock approaching he would toss these birds into the air, and when the 
end of their string was reached it would pull them down to the ground 
as if alighting. 
When we remember that they had to be frightened away from the 
newly sown grain fields, it is not hard 'o understand how easily the 
hungry birds were decoyed. From large flocks sometimes enough would 
alight to cover the feed-bed. and when the net was thrown they would 
