Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1906-08-28
WILD PIGEONS RETURN.
GREAT FLOCKS SEEN IN WEST
RECALLS AMiGRATIoNs OF
OLD DAYS.

oIogist Tells of One Flock a Mile
Wide and Two Hundred and Forty
Miles Long.
1t is most welcome news, if the re-
ports be true, says the Providence
Tribune, that the wild pigeon has been
seen in some parts of the Western
country. 1t is many years since those
immense focks which were a Won
der to the beholder disappeared all
Of sudden, and no man could tell
the cause of their disappearance nor
the place to which they had flown.
They were seen as late as the middle
seventies in New York State, but be-
fore that time they had ceased to visit
New England. Sixty years ago they
were numerous in some parts OF
Maine, especially where the India
wheat was grown in large quantities,
and where the BURBERRY pastures Of
fered their tempting fruit. In those
days the Boston markets Supplied
them sometimes at fifty cents dozen
and the memories of pigeon stew with
dumplings or the juicy pot pie are
fragrant to many man who has
reached the Psalmist's limit of age.
A remarkable characteristic of
these birds was their associating to-
gether, both in their migratlons and
Turing the time of incubation, in such
prodigious numbers as almost to be
beyond belief; no one of the other
feathered tribes is at all like the
wild pigeon in this respect.
The migrations of the bird do not
seem 30 have been caused simply by
the cold of the climate, for as late
as December they used to be found in
the northern regions around Hudson's
Bay. 1t was rather in quest of the
;ood that they made their flights. AS
the beechnut was the chief food of
the wild pigeon, in those seasons and
places where it was most abundant
corresponding multitudes of pigeons
might be expected.
When they had consumed all the
beech nuts in one district they would
discover another, perhaps hundred
miles off, to which they would go,
returning at night to their general
rOosting place, which was always in
a large forest When they frequented
one of these places for any length OF
time great havoc was made. All the
tender grass and other heritage be-
meath their roost was utterly de-
stroyed, large limbs of trees were
broken down by the weight of the
birds, and the trees themselves, for
hundreds of acres, as completely kill
ed as if girdled by an axe.
The breeding place was of greater
extent than the place where they
roasted. There was one in Kentucky
which was said to stretch through
the woods, in a north and south di-
rection, nearly forty miles in length
and several miles in breadth. In this
tract almost every tree was furnished
with nests wherever the branches
could hold them. At this place the
pigeons made their first appearance
about April IL and left it altogether
with their young before May 25.
Space is wanting to describe the
sad havoc made among the birds by
the people in whose section they
nestled. The natives came from all
the surrounding districts and en-
camped for days among the immense
nurseries. Their cut down the trees
which were most crowded with nests,
and the falling of one tree sometimes
produced two hundred squads little
inferior in size to the old ones and
almost one mass of fat.
From the account given of the
flight of vast fiocks of the wild pig
cons one is reminded of the locust
swarms of the East. Wilson, in his
American ORTHODOXY" describes a
flight which he once saw on his way
to Frankfort, Ky.
1t travelled in a compact body at
a height beyond gunshot, with great
rapidity and steadfastness. Curious
to know how long the passage would
continue he took out his watch and
waited more than an hour. But the
procession seemed only to increase in
numbers and so he continued on his
journey. When he reached Frankfort,
four hours after he first saw the flock
the living torrent over the head was
as extensive as ever.
Mr.. Wilson afterward made a cur
ious calculation of this flock. If we
suppose the column to have been only
one mile in breadth (and he believed
it to be much more) and that it moved
at the rate of a mile a minute, four
hours, the time it continued passing,
would make the whole length two hun
dred and forty miles. Again, suppos-
ing that each squad yard of this NOV
ing body enclosed three pigeons, the
square yards in the whole space multi
piled by three would give two billion
two hundred and thirty million, two
hundred and seventy-two thousand.
1t could not be possible that simply
the daughter by man was the cause
Of the total disappearance of such
huge flocks. Perhaps the continuance
of the civil war was the reason of
their migrating to some more con-
genial district of our immense coun-
try where man has not discovered
them. Anyhow, if they are really
coming back the old song of seventy
years ago will be revived and we can
IBID farewell to pork and beans and
live on pigeon pie"
The Drummer in Africa.