Identifier: passengerpigeoni00fren (find matches)
Title: The passenger pigeon in Pennsylvania, its remarkable history, habits and extinction, with interesting side lights on the folk and forest lore of the Alleghenian region of the old Keystone state
Year: 1919 (1910s)
Authors: French, John C., 1858-
Subjects: Pigeons
Publisher: Altoona, Pa., Altoona tribune company
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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dby the men, should be given quick pulls, as the pigeonsthat alighted were picking up the grain. The stool-pigeons were captured wild pigeons, witheyelids sewn together, so they were blind for the timebeing, tied with strings, two or three yards long, sothey could fly up a little and drop down again uponthe bed when they heard the flocks above their heads,thus attracting the passing pigeons to alight and par-take of the grain around them, which they also sawand desired. A few hundred would alight and crowdtogether on the bed as they hastily picked up the ker-nels of corn and then the smaller buckwheat, too ab-sorbed to notice the net as it was sprung over them.Their heads, raised through the meshes of the net,were then pinched between thumb and finger orcrushed, bv the teeth of the men. From the Record and Star, Watsontown, Pennsyl-vania, July 13. 1917. Lew C. Fosnot. the editor, indescribing a driving trip through the Pennsylvaniamountains in which he had recently participated, says:
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re (J> 0) 55 O o oiO THE PA&SENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 83 Brush Valley furnished a diversion to our party inthe shape of a wild-pigeon story that in spite of theearnestness and apparent lack of incentive to prevar-icate or exaggerate on the part of our informant, isto be accepted with mental reservation. Mr. Snook, afarmer residing near the Stover home, reports that lastfall—in buckwheat time—he was visited by a flock ofat least five hundred wild pigeons, and that the pre-vious spring a flock of about half that size were seenon his place. In the face of the fact that naturalistsand wild bird lovers have been offering big rewardsfor even a single pair of wild pigeons, and that thespecies have long been regarded as extinct, this storyseems highly improbable. Notwithstanding the re-moteness of the section of alleged visitation, it is tooimportant an occurrence not to have been reported ordiscovered by interested persons. The further factthat none of Mr. Snooks neighbors saw

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