Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1897-12-01
#iseellaneoas &saaing.
AN EXTINCT GAME BIRD.

|
/ Pigeons.
The announcement is made by the
Smithsonian Institute that it has
been impossible to obtain single live
specimen of the wild or passenger
pigeon. Notwithstanding liberal re-
ward was offered and much CORES
pondence carried on, no live wild
pigeon has been brought forward.
That this native American bird is
extinct will no doubt astonish many
persons, for it has been but few years
ago that they were 80 plentiful as to
actually seem to outnumber the leaves
on the trees through which they drove
their amazingly rapid flight. Persons
yet in the middle life can remember
the vast flights of pigeons which could
be seen any day in the fall after the
middle of October and all through
November. Sometimes these flights
stretched across the sky from horizon
to horizon, and so dense that the sun
was for hours hidden. Audubon OBJ
served flight of pigeons in Kentucky
that extended as far as the eye could
see and was more than five hours in
passing. He attempted to compute
the number of individual birds in the
fight, and found that beyond question
there was more than five hundred
million. Further than this, he esti-
mated there could not have been less
than this number in the smaller and
detached flights which were passing to
the north in great numbers early in
the day, flying very swiftly and un-
usually high. These first flights ap-
pear to be the vanguard of an i'm
mense army. He observed with the
utmost wonder that the number of
flights visible early in the day increas-
ed until the earth was canopied with
the feathered hosts, and that when the
main body of the rank and file had
passed there were yet detached regi-
ments to cover the rear of the fleeing
army. The stragglers passed until
darkness rendered them invisible.
A pigeon roost was place where
confusion worse confounded reigned
supreme. Towards evening, when the
foraging party returned to its nightly
resting place, the uproar and tumult
caused by the rushing tens of thous-
ands of wings was deafening. The
place was not without its danger, for
branches of trees were torn from the
trunks by the weight of the birds that
clung to them for roost, and crashed
downward to the earth, breaking other
branches in their fall, and starting
thousand of ready wings to futtering,
until the sound was as the soaring of a
mighty wind through the tree tops.
| In such mishaps, which were constant
lly occurring over u wide expanse Of
country, numberless birds were killed
and wounded and fell to the ground,
where they became prey to the swine
that roamed the woods.
The birds would not forsake roost
so long as food could be obtained in a
half:day's journey. In the nesting
season, when the male birds attends
with assiduous care upon the nesting
mate, these dauntless husbands have
been known to fly 200 miles in search
of food, and their return was the sig
nal for an outburst of the most clam
orous joy on the part of those who
remained.
In the neigbborhood of Connersville,
| in the southeastern part of Indiana,
there was, some 80 years ago, an i'm
mense wood which every fall, as the
pigeons went south, and in the follow
ing spring, as they journeyed north to
their summer homes, was occupied as
roost at night. This was a stopping
place for the migrating birds. Every
evening the steady columns swiftly de-
ployed into this wood until every tree
was weighted down with its living
load. Within an hour or two after
nightfall the birds became quiet, and
the sigh of the winds was the only
sound save the gentle coo of some
sleepless birds whose rest was disturb
ed by the encroachment of others.
Late at night men came from all direc-
tions with wagons piled high with
GOODS. They were armed with long
poles and sticks and carried torches.
The lights glare seemed to paralyze
the birds, for those in the vicinity OF
the lights renamed inactive while the
men beat those on the lower branches
into insensibility with their sticks, and
dislodged hundreds with their poles.
The dead and wounded birds were
gathered up and stuffed into the coops
until they would hold no more, when
thew were sold to a dealer who employ
ed men and women to pick and clean
the birds and pack them into barrels.
Hundreds of barrels were shipped out
of Connersvile during season, and
this business was carried on for years
each spring and fall.
In the daytime, both in the vicinity
of the roosts and over tie country
generally, the birds were caught with
nets. and countless thousands were de-
stroyed in this manner. The nets
we're stretched over oblong frames of
wood about six feet wide and 20, 80 or
40 feet long. A favorite place for SET
ting the net was in an open wood.
where the nets were placed at an an
gle of As degrees and held in position
by light props at each end. A string
tied to each prop extended to a screen
of cornstalks or brush, under which a
man Law concealed.
Sometimes, especially in wet wealth
er, the birds flew so low that they