"At one period of the year numerous and immense flights of pigeons
visit Canada, when the population make a furious war against them both
by guns and nets; they supply the inhabitants with a material part of
their subsistence, and are sold in the market at Quebec remarkably
cheap, often as low as a shilling per dozen, and sometimes even at a
less rate. It appears that the pigeon prefers the loftiest and most
leafless tree to settle on. In addition to the natural beauty of St.
Ann and its environs, the process by which the inhabitants take the
pigeons is worth remarking. Upon the loftiest tree, long bare poles are
slantingly fixed; small pieces of wood are placed transversely across
this pole, upon which the birds crowd; below, in ambush, the sportsman
with a long gun enfilades the whole length of the pole, and, when he
fires, few if any escape. Innumerable poles are prepared at St. Ann for
this purpose. The other method they have of taking them is by nets,
by which means they are enabled to preserve them alive, and kill them
occasionally for their own use or for the market, when it has ceased
to be glutted with them. Behind Madam Fontane's this sport may be seen
in perfection. The nets, which are very large, are placed at the end
of an avenue of trees (for it appears the pigeons choose an avenue
to fly down); opposite a large tree, upon erect poles two nets are
suspended, one facing the avenue, the other the tree; another is placed
over them, which is fixed at one end, and supported by pulleys and two
perpendicular poles at the opposite; a man is hid in a small covered
house under the tree, with a rope leading from the pulleys in his hand.
Directly the pigeons fly against the perpendicular nets, he pulls the
rope, when the top net immediately falls and incloses the whole flock;
by this process vast numbers are taken."
"Tanner's Narrative," a story (authentic) of thirty years among the
Indians, published in 1830, refers frequently to great numbers of
pigeons, and gives their range from the Kentucky, Big Miami and Ohio
Rivers to Lake Winnipeg, or "The Lake of Dirty Waters."
Mr. Osborn further adds: "Tanner was a United States Indian interpreter
at the Soo."
William Glazier made a trip to the headwaters of the Mississippi River
in 1881 and wrote a book entitled "Down the Mississippi River." In
three different places in this book he mentions seeing wild pigeons.
In one place he says that a small flock of pigeons dropped down in the
tops of some tall pines near him.
In Hayden's Survey Report, Interior Department, as given in Coues'
"Birds of the Northwest," 1874, it is mentioned that wild pigeons
were found on the Pacific coast, and Cooper reports them in the
Rocky Mountains. [High authority, but it must have referred to the
band-tailed pigeon.--W. B. M.]
From the foregoing chapters I have summarized the latest reports of the
presence of the wild pigeon in its former haunts. These instances have
been reported as follows:
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