April 16, 1910.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
G15 
trees were often chopped down and several hun¬ 
dred young pigeons thus secured from one tree. 
Very early in the morning before the sun was 
up the male pigeons would start out from the 
forest on a foraging tour. At 10 o’clock the 
male birds had returned and then the female 
pigeons started out to feed and to bring food 
for the nestlings. I am told that men went into 
these forests at night, and with clubs killed hun¬ 
dreds of pigeons roosting on the low branches 
of the trees. 
A grocery man at Andover offered a trapper 
or netter of wild pigeons twenty-five cents per 
twelve for all the pigeons he would catch with 
his net. One day this man brought in and sold 
to the grocer 2,500 pigeons. The pigeons were 
packed in barrels and shipped by express to New 
York city. A traveler bought of this grocer 300 
dozen pigeons at thirty-five cents per dozen. 
These pigeons were intended to be sent as pres¬ 
ents to city friends of the buyer. 
In Western New York I have seen the sky 
so densely occupied with flocks of pigeons as to 
cast a shadow over the landscape. The princi¬ 
pal hour of their flying was in the morning be¬ 
fore 10 o’clock and in the afternoon after 4 
o’clock. On the shore of Lake Ontario wagon 
loads of pigeons were shot in a few hours in 
the early morning. The pigeons in their flight 
northward came to the lake which they dared 
not pass over. On reaching the lake they turned 
eastward along the shore in such vast numbers 
that one discharge of the gun might bring down 
a dozen. Forty-five years ago any school boy 
with a shotgun could go out into the nearby 
woods and shoot a mess of pigeons. There 
were times when he could find the pigeons in 
the orchard. Pigeons were most plentiful in 
September when wheat was sown. I have seen 
thousands of them picking up seeds of wheat 
at this season of the year. The pigeon was not 
a wary bird like the hawk, crow or partridge. 
It seemed to have confidence in mankind and 
not to anticipate danger, thus its destruction was 
rapid and complete. 
Mr. Lamberton has spent much of his life in 
the Adirondacks. He has ever been an enthu¬ 
siastic hunter and fisherman. He has for many 
years been a contributor to Forest and Stream. 
He can remember when wild pigeons were so 
plentiful in the Adirondack Mountains as to 
darken the sky as they passed over in their 
migrations. He has seen the branches of trees 
in the Adirondacks broken down with the weight 
of the nests and the bird?, and has known farm¬ 
ers to drive wagons into the woods where the 
pigeons were and to fill the wagon boxes with 
the young birds which had fallen to the ground 
owing to the breaking of the branches. 
Charles A. Green. 
Concerning Bears. 
New York City, April 5 .—Editor Forest and 
Stream: The editorial comment on bears fol¬ 
lowing “Concerning Black Bears” in Forest and 
Stream of March 12 is so satisfactory that I 
cannot resist writing to tell you so. It accords 
with my own experience and observations. 
A large proportion of sportsmen need some 
education in observation, so that an animal’s 
actions may be correctly interpreted. This ap¬ 
plies to the bears more than any other American 
animal, and I am glad to see the subject so well 
treated in your editorial. C. Sheldon. 
Tie Up the Dogs. 
Claremont, N. H., April 5. — Editor Forest and 
Stream: Your editorial in Forest and Stream 
of April 2 entitled “Tie Up the Dogs” contains 
more practical ideas about the preservation of 
game birds than I have seen published thereto¬ 
fore in many a month. 
There is no doubt whatever that the self- 
hunting dog destroys more young birds and eggs 
than all the foxes, owls, hawks, cats, weasels, 
minks and ’coons combined. He is a constant. 
The average farm dog is underfed. Not that 
he may not have an abundance of a certain kind 
of food, such as cornmeal bread, potatoes and 
such like, but he has not the right ljind of food 
—not the kind he likes. Being carnivorous by 
IN A WOODS PATH. 
From a photo by F. F. Sornberger. 
nature, his system craves a certain amount of 
animal food, and no amount of vegetable diet 
can appease this craving. The city-owned dog is 
more fortunate, since city residents are greater 
consumers of beef, mutton, chickens, etc., than 
are the country residents, hence the city-owned 
dog falls heir to an abundance of meat scraps. 
The staple meat diet of country residents being 
pork, there are no scraps worth mentioning, and 
in any event pork scraps are not a wholesome 
food for the dog. 
Being thus underfed, the country-owned dog 
seeks a supply of animal food. He follows the 
lines of least resistance and becomes a self¬ 
hunter. There is much of nobility of character 
in the dog, but there also is much otherwise, 
chief of which is that he is a sneak thief by 
nature. He will suck the eggs of domestic fowls 
if he can do so with safety to his hide. He be¬ 
comes an expert in timing his marauding so as 
to effect his ventures noiselessly and unseen. 
Frequently the self-hunting dog condu ,fs his 
expeditions without any knowledge of them on 
the part of his master. The latter may occas¬ 
ionally hear him barking far afield, and on in¬ 
vestigating the cause finds that his dog has a 
woodchuck at bay, whereupon he jumps to the 
conclusion that his dog is intelligently ridding 
the farm of vermin. The woodchuck was mere¬ 
ly an incident of the dog’s prowlings. He was 
in search of anything edible. 
By nature the dog is a scavenger, a filthy 
feeder, and no care in his domestication can 
change this phase of his nature. He also has 
much in his nature which does not come fully 
to the surface in domestication, and he leads 
more or less of a double life. With very little 
opportunity, he easily reverts to wild life, the 
savage life of his ancestors, the life of the wolf. 
Self-hunting dogs prefer to hunt in company, 
because they are gregarious by nature, and also 
because in the pursuit of prey a team of dogs 
is far more successful than is a single dog. 
The self-hunting* dogs scour a country thor¬ 
oughly for miles around their homes. Every 
hedge, covert and swamp is thoroughly nosed 
out with the consequent widespread destruction 
of the eggs and young of all birds which nest 
on the ground, and unfortunately of such are 
the game birds—quail, ruffed grouse and wood¬ 
cock, etc. 
Sometimes the self-hunters regale themselves 
on lamb c*r sheep, and it is a well known fact 
that in certain parts of New England the rais¬ 
ing of sheep is either impossible or unprofitable 
because of the self-hunting dogs. 
Of what use is the service of the game war¬ 
den, or the passing of game laws for the con¬ 
servation of our game birds; of what use is the 
restocking of barren covers, if the self-hunting 
dog is to prevent all increase of the birds? 
The average dog owner, resident in the coun¬ 
try, is prone to believe that his dog is as well 
behaved when absent as when under his eye. He 
may even scoff at the idea that his dog is absent 
at all on self-hunting expeditions. The behavior 
of the average dog when at home and abroad is 
quite distinct. When abroad he shows true dog 
nature, that of the marauder, merciless when 
powerful enough to conquer, but with a whole¬ 
some fear of danger when he meets superior 
force. 
The cat, of which much has been written in 
condemnation—and deservedly so—is an insig¬ 
nificant weakling in its powers of destruction. 
As compared with the dog, it ranges but a short 
distance from home, rarely over a half mile, 
whereas the dog prowls for miles. The cat is 
not a sucker of eggs. Relatively a very small 
quantity of food suffices for it, and it is a much 
more dainty feeder than the dog. Its excursions 
are infrequent. 
If the self-hunting cur dog would make as 
much noise in his prowlings as does the hound 
in the pursuit of deer, his misdeeds would be 
quite obvious, but his silence and cunning in 
avoiding observation effect quite the opposite re¬ 
sult. 
That stringent laws should be enforced to pre¬ 
vent hounds from roaming in a deer country, 
while cur dogs are permitted to prowl undis¬ 
turbed through the areas where the game birds 
nest and have their habitat, is one of the in¬ 
congruities of game law legislation which is diffi¬ 
cult of comprehension. The two cases are on 
all fours. 
