Aug. 24, 1912 
FOREST AND STREAM 
235 
about the wild game. Indians sold all the deer 
to the new settlers they could eat for fifty cents 
a head. Wild turkeys weighing forty-six pound' 
were found, and the woods were full of them 
where now the city of Philadelphia stands. But 
most surprising of all was the vast number of 
wild pigeons. 
Penn’s lieutenant says the birds could be 
easily killed with clubs. For 200 years there¬ 
after Pennsylvanians, and for all I know dwell¬ 
ers in other adjoining States as well, were kill¬ 
ing pigeons every spring, and yet the flocks were 
enormous up to the early eighties in the last 
century. Then all at once they vanished—not 
gradually, but almost instantly, and they have 
never yet returned. 
Wild pigeons when seen always flew North. 
I never saw any fly South, but of course they 
always went South to winter. The migrations 
to the warm country occurred at night and they 
rested during the daylight. They would come 
North soon after the snow disappeared, usually 
in March or early in April. Their period of 
flight was short and as I recall it not over a 
couple of weeks. A gray cloudy day that was 
warm was the time these birds pushed north¬ 
ward in the greatest haste. 
I have seen flocks which must have contained 
a million birds and flocks of a thousand were 
common. It usually happened that once or twice 
each spring a stupendous flock would be seen. 
Then every one’s attention would be called to it. 
The teacher would even permit us to look from 
the school house windows to see these giant 
hordes. 
Pigeons fly in irregular flocks and not like 
wild geese which invariably go in the shape of 
a letter V. I have seen flocks that were so big 
that it was impossible to see both ends at the 
same time. This sounds like an exaggeration, 
but there are thousands of persons living who 
can verify the statement. Dozens upon dozens 
of flocks, big and little, and all coming straight 
up from the South would pass overhead in a 
day. I never saw a wild pigeon fly alone. It 
was also extremely uncommon to see them alight 
except when a snow storm suddenly overtook 
them, or when they were being lured to the nets 
by bird catchers. 
Pigeons as a rule flew fairly high, but not 
so high that the whirr of their myriad wings 
was lost to the human ear. They made no cry 
and they flew steadily and with amazing swift¬ 
ness. 
All wild pigeons that I ever saw were of 
exactly the same color. They were dark blue. 
They were shaped somewhat differently from a 
tame pigeon, having a smaller breast and were 
fashioned more nearly like a turtle dove. They 
were built for great speed and long endurance. 
A belated snow storm that covered the 
ground for several days resulted in consterna¬ 
tion among the migrating pigeons. It also fur¬ 
nished a good proof that they ordinarily rested, 
if rest they took on their great journey, during 
the night time, for except at such snowy periods 
these rapid travelers were never seen to stop or 
eat. But as stated before, when on the return 
journey to the sunny South in autumn, the 
pigeons flew by night and rested during the day 
time, so that no one saw them go. 
I have known a big flock of pigeons to 
settle upon a barn and all around a farm yard 
when there was snow on the ground. They were 
WILD PIGEONS. 
seeking food. 1 never saw a flock alight except 
when there was snow or when they were brought 
down by the deceiving stool-pigeon and flyer. 
I do not know now and I never did know 
just when the wild pigeons returned from their 
Northern hatching places. The first snow in the 
autumn, however, must have been to them the 
compelling message. 
The manner of catching pigeons in nets as 
practiced in Northern Pennsylvania up to twenty- 
five years ago was unique. Two men would 
build a little hut of green pine or hemlock 
boughs on top of a high, bare hill and usually 
near the edge of a woods. This hut was uni¬ 
versally known as the “bough house.” A few 
feet away from this place of concealment the 
men would spread brown buckwheat chaff over 
a space perhaps twenty feet square. A stake 
was driven in the middle of this brown patch of 
chaff, and a wild pigeon was tied to it by the 
_ feet with a string about a yard long. This is 
the genesis of the term “stool-pigeon,” as will 
be seen later. 
The men in the bough house had another 
pigeon that had been purposely blinded and at¬ 
tached to a string a hundred feet or so long. 
This pigeon was called the flyer. Then off to 
one side of the space covered with chaff was 
placed a net that was to catch the pigeons. This 
resembled an ordinary fish net and was cleverly 
attached to a crude spring, so that when the 
men in the bough house pulled the rope, they 
sprung the net. 
With this outfit ready and a good day 
dawning, a pair of bird hunters could be sure 
of pigeon pot pie for an entire neighborhood 
for a week. 
But keep quiet! Here comes a flock of 
pigeons—not a big one, only three hundred birds. 
They are flying low over the top of our high 
bare hill and its deceptive little bough house. 
Whirr! The captive pigeon tied to the stake 
out on the field of chaff sees its former com¬ 
panions and rises to meet them only to be pulled 
back to its prison post. Our stool-pigeon now 
makes a great ado, and it will be queer indeed 
