Wild turkeys were caught in turkey pens, enclosures made of poles about twenty feet long, laid one above another, forming a solid wall ten feet high. This was covered with a close pole and brush roof. A ditch was dug beginning about fifteen feet away from the pen; sloping down and carried under one side of the pen and opening up into it through a board in which a hole was cut just large enough for a turkey to pass through. Corn was strewn the whole length of the ditch. The turkeys followed the ditch and the corn up through the hole into the pen; and held their heads too high ever to find their way out again. Often fifty captives would be found in the morning. Boys learned "to prate" for pigeons, that is, to imitate their call. This was useful in luring them within gun-shot. A successful method of pigeon-shooting was learned from the Indians. A covert was made of green branches with an opening in the back by which the hunter could enter. In front of this covert, at firing distance, a long pole was raised up on two crotched sticks eight or ten feet from the ground, set so that a shot from the booth would rake the entire length of the pole; hence the crotch nearest the booth was a trifle lower than the other, at the same angle that the gun barrel would take. To lure pigeons from a flock to settle on this pole live pigeons were used as decoys. They were temporarily blinded in a cruel manner. A hole was pierced in the lower eyelid, a thread inserted, and the eyelid drawn up and tied over the eye. A soft kid boot or loop was put over one leg and a fine cord tied to it. The pigeon called the long flyer had a long cord, and by his fluttering attracted pigeons from a flock. The short flyer with shorter cord lured pigeons flying low. The hoverer was tied close to the end of a small pole set on an upright post. This pole was worked by a string, and by moving the pigeon up and down it appeared to be hovering as if to alight. The hunter, loudly prating, sat hidden behind his three blind, fluttering, terrified decoys. Then came a beautiful flash and gleam of color and life and graceful motion, as with a swish of reversed wings a row of gentle creatures lighted on the fatal pole. In a second came the report of the gun, and the ground was covered with the fluttering, maimed, and dead bodies. Fifty-two at one shot, a Lexington man named William Locke killed. Other methods of pigeon-killing were by snaring them in "twitch-ups"; also in a pigeon-bed, baited, over which a net was thrown on the feeding birds.