PIGEONS. 
281 
valley, and made fast to trees. Three tall spars, nearly fifty 
feet in height, are reared in a triangular form, meeting in a 
point at the summit, where a sort of nest of hushes is made, 
in which a person conceals himself, ascending the high poles 
by small pegs, which, as they shake under his weight, are as 
slender as possible, consistently with strength, appears to 
lookers-on to he a service of no small risk. Two men are 
also concealed in hushes near the nets, which, by means of 
lines, they are enabled to throw over the Pigeons as they 
advance ; while others, assembled on the heights immediately 
above, frighten the birds and force them to fly downwards as 
they pass through the channel of the valley. When all have 
taken their positions, they wait patiently and silently the 
arrival of a flock of Pigeons. Their approach is announced 
by a rushing sound, on hearing which the people on the 
heights pour upon them a volley of short sticks, which com- 
pel them to lower their flight towards the ground, when, if 
they attempt to rise, the man in the nest immediately begins 
shaking his airy perch as much as possible, and throwing upon 
the affrighted birds sticks tied together in the form of a cross, 
which make a whizzing sound as they fall. Impelled by this 
united attack, the Pigeons rush forward to the head of the 
gorge, and there meet their fate in the nets which stop their 
progress. By this means sometimes as many as two hundred 
are caught at once. 
The American Wild Pigeons, as well as our common Wood 
Pigeons (Columba oenas and 'palumba ), the Stock Dove and 
Bing Dove, usually build in trees ; hut not always, for in 
many situations they prefer holes in rocks and precipices, and 
even in some cases old rabbit-burrows : when found in these, 
the warreners fix sticks at the mouth of the hole, in such a 
manner as to prevent the escape of the young birds, but wide 
enough apart to allow the old ones to feed them. In the 
eastern countries and the Holy Land the Wild Pigeons almost 
invariably prefer such situations to trees ; thus confirming the 
words of the prophet, who speaks of the Dove that maketh 
her nest in the sides of the hole s mouth. (Jeremiah 
xlviii. 28 .) 
