204 
THE WILD PIGEON OF NORTH AMERICA. 
When food is abundant they nest each 
month in the year. 
Their principal food is the mast of the 
forest, except when curd is being secreted 
in their crops, at which time they denude 
the country of snails and worms for miles 
around the nesting grounds. Because they 
nest in such immense bodies, they are fre¬ 
quently compelled to fly from fifty to one 
hundred miles for food. 
During my early life I learned that these 
birds in spring and fall were seen in their 
migrations from the Atlantic to the Miss¬ 
issippi River. This knowledge, together 
with my personal observation of their count¬ 
less numbers, led me to believe they were 
almost as inexhaustible as the great ocean 
itself. Of course I had witnessed the pass¬ 
ing away of the deer, buffalo, and elk, but 
I looked upon them as local in their habits, 
while these birds spanned the continent, 
frequently nesting beyond the reach of cruel 
man. 
Between 1840 and 1880 I visited in the 
states of Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan 
many brooding places that were from twenty 
to thirty miles long and from three to four 
miles wide, every tree in its limits being 
spotted with nests. Yet notwithstanding 
their countless numbers, great endurance, 
and long life, they have almost entirely dis¬ 
appeared from our forests. We strain our 
eyes in spring and autumn in vain to catch 
a glimpse of these pilgrims. White men 
tell us they have moved in a body to the 
Rocky Mountain region, where they are as 
plenty as they were here, but when we ask 
red men about them who are familiar with 
the mountain country, they shake their 
heads in disbelief. 
A pigeon nesting was always a great 
source of revenue to our people. Whole 
tribes would wigwam in the brooding places. 
They seldom killed the old birds, but made 
great preparation to secure their young, out 
of which the squaws made squab butter and 
smoked and dried them by thousands for 
future use. Yet under our manner of secur¬ 
ing them they continued to increase. 
White men commenced netting them for 
market about the year 1840. These men 
were known as professional pigeoners, from 
the fact that they banded themselves to¬ 
gether, so as to keep in telegraphic com¬ 
munication with these great moving bodies. 
In this they became so expert as to be al¬ 
most continually on the borders of their 
brooding places. As they were always pre¬ 
pared with trained stool pigeons and flyers 
which they carried with them, they were en¬ 
abled to call down the passing flocks and se¬ 
cure as many by net as they were able to pack 
in ice and ship to market. In the year 1848 
there were shipped from Catteraugus County, 
N. Y., eighty tons of these birds; and from 
that time to 1878 the wholesale slaughter con¬ 
tinued to increase, and in that year there 
were shipped from Michigan not less than 
three hundred tons of these birds. During 
the thirty years of their greatest slaughter 
there must have been shipped to our great 
cities 5,700 tons of these birds; allowing each 
pigeon to weigh one half pound would show 
twenty-three millions of these birds. Think 
of it! And all these were caught during 
their brooding season, which must have de¬ 
creased their numbers as many more. 
Nor is this all. During the same time 
hunters from all parts of the country gathered 
at these brooding places and slaughtered 
them without mercy. 
In the above estimate are not reckoned the 
thousands of dozens that were shipped alive 
to sporting clubs for trap shooting as well 
as those consumed by the local trade through¬ 
out the pigeon districts of the United States. 
These experts finally learned that the 
birds while nesting were frantic after salty 
mud and water, so they frequently made 
near the nesting places, what was known by 
the craft as mud beds, which were salted, 
to which the birds would flock by the million. 
In April, 1876, I was invited to see a net 
over one of these death pits. It was near 
Petoskey, Michigan. I think I am correct 
in saying the birds piled one upon another 
at least two feet deep when the net was 
sprung, and it seemed to me that most of 
them escaped the trap, but on killing and 
counting, there were found to be over one 
hundred dozen, all nesting birds. 
When squabs of a nesting became fit for 
