Early in the morning, Len, with his land-looker's pack and half-ax, and
the writer, started out to "look land." Taking the course indicated
by the obliging small boy, we soon struck into an old Indian trail
which led us through another portion of the nesting, where the birds
for countless numbers surpassed all calculation. The chirping and
noise of wings were deafening and conversation, to be audible, had
to be carried on at the top of our voices. On the shores of the lake
where the birds go to drink, when flushed by an intruder, the rush
of wings of the gathered millions was like the roar of thunder and
perfectly indescribable. An hour's walk brought us to a ravine which we
cautiously approached.
Directed by the commotion in the air, we soon discovered the bough
house and net of the trapper. Evidence being what we sought, we stood
concealed behind some bushes to await the spring of the trap. The black
muck bed soon became blue and purple with pigeons lured by the salt and
sulphur, when suddenly the net was sprung over with a "whiz," retaining
hundreds of birds beneath it, while those outside its limits flew to
adjacent trees. We now descended from the brink of the hill to the net,
and there beheld a sickening sight not soon forgotten.
On one side of the bed of a little creek was spread the net, a double
one, covering an area when thrown, of about ten by twenty feet. Through
its meshes were stretched the heads of the fluttering captives vainly
struggling to escape. In the midst of them stood a stalwart pigeoner
up to his knees in the mire and bespattered with mud and blood from
head to foot. Passing from bird to bird, with a pair of blacksmith's
pincers, he gave the neck of each a cruel grip with his remorseless
weapon, causing the blood to burst from the eyes and trickle down the
beak of the helpless captive, which slowly fluttered its life away,
its beautiful plumage besmeared with filth and its bed dyed with its
crimson blood. When all were dead, the net was raised, many still
clinging to its meshes with beak and claws in their death grip and were
shaken off. They were then gathered, counted, deposited behind a log
with many others and covered with bushes, and the death trap set for
another harvest.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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