Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/101

 CHAPTER VIII

Efforts to Check the Slaughter

OR many years Passenger Pigeon nestings have been established in Michigan, and by a noticeable concurrence, only in even alternate years, as follows: 1868, 1870, 1872, 1874, 1876, 1878. In 1876 there were no less than three nestings in the State, one each in Newaygo, Oceana, and Grand Traverse counties.

Large numbers of professional "pigeoners," as they term themselves, devote their whole time to the business of following up and netting wild pigeons for gain and profit. These men carefully study the habits and direction of flight of the birds, and in the spring of the year can tell with considerable accuracy in about what 77