Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/145

 Rh timber. There are worlds of feed in the foothills, for thousands of miles, to feed the birds. They are a greedy bird and will eat everything from a hemlock seed to an acorn. I have known them to nest on hemlock mast alone in Pennsylvania, and in Michigan on the pine mast after the beech mast was gone. Most of the nesting in Michigan happens March to July, and then they skip farther north and return in wheat seeding.

, February 24, 1898.



I will give you a few catches. In 1862, at Monroe, Wis., George Paxon, of Evans Center, N. Y., and myself made one haul of 250 dozen five miles south of the city on corn bait in a pen 32x64 feet with nets sprung across the top. We fed at this bed over five hundred bushels of corn at 25 cents per bushel, and at our other beds nearly as much. After the flight-birds were over, with a single net sprung on the ground we have taken 100 dozen at a time.

At Augusta, Wis., in 1871, Charles Curtin, then of Indiana (dead now), over one hundred dozen; William W. Cone of Masonville, N. Y., Samuel Schook of Circleville, Ohio, and some other boys, 100 dozen and over. L. G. Parker of Camden, N. Y., C. S. Martin, the Rocky Mountain hunter of Wisconsin, E. G. Slayton of Chetek, Wis., are old trappers and could tell of