Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/30

8 for a father or an uncle to reinforce my protests and there is a pretty row which ends in the interloper taking to his heels to wait for a more propitious occasion.

"When we are ready to carry our birds home we pull out the four long tail-feathers and knot them together at the tips. Then the quill ends are stuck through the soft part of the lower mandible, and the birds are strung together, eight or ten in a string. These strings are bunched together by tying the quill ends of the feathers, and we have our game festooned in compact shape for the triumphal march homeward bound."

Alas, the pigeons and the frosty morning hunts and the delectable pigeon-pie are gone, no more to return. They are numbered with those recollections which help to convince me that the boys of to-day don't have as good times we youngsters did in the prime of our busy out-door world.