miguatoky pigeox. 
801 
spread out on suitable situations, commonly on an open 
Iieioht in an old buckwheat field; four or five live 
pipcons, with their eyelids sew-ed up, are fastened on 
a movable stick ; a small hut of branches is fatted up 
for the fowler, at the distance of forty or fifty yards ; 
W the inilliuir 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 perceived by the passing 
flocks they descend with great rapidity, and, finding 
Corn iiuckn heat, ko. strewed about, begin to feed, and 
are instantlv, by the pulling of a cord, covered by the 
bet In tliis 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 siyarm with them 
in search of acorns ; and the tlnindcring of musketry 
is 'nernefiial on all sides, from moniing to night. 
\Vul,„n loads of them iwe poured into market, w here 
tliev sell from fifty to twenty-five, and even tw^elve 
dozen ; and pigeons hccoino the Older oi the 
day at dinner, hreakfast, and supper, until the very 
iJauie hocomt's sickening. ^Vhen they have been kept 
and ted for some time on corn and buckwheat, 
their flesh acipiires great superiority; hnt, in tlioir 
noinnioii state, tliey are dry and blackish, and iar inferior 
to the full grown young ones, or sfiualis. 
Tlie nest of the wild pigeon is formed of a few dry 
slender twi-s, carelessly put togetlicr, and with so httie 
<xmcavity, that tlie young one, w hen half grown, can 
busily be seen from behnv. The eggs are imre white, 
fircat numbers of hawks, and sometimes the bald eagle 
liiinself hover about those breeding places, and seize 
the old or the young from the iiest amidst the rising 
tbultitudcs and w'ith the most daring efiVontery. flic 
young, wlieii beginning to fly, eonfine tlicniselvcs to 
the muler part of tlie tall woods wliero tliere is no hnisli^ 
and wliere nuts and acorns are abundant, scarcliing 
amomi- the leaves for mast, and appear like a prodigious 
