Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/78



54 these pilgrims. White men tell us they have moved in a body to the Rocky Mountain region, where they are as plenty as they were here, but when we ask red men, who are familiar with the mountain country, about them, they shake their heads in disbelief,

A pigeon nesting was always a great source of revenue to our people. Whole tribes would wigwam in the brooding places. They seldom killed the old birds, but made great preparation to secure their young, out of which the squaws made squab butter and smoked and dried them by thousands for future use. Yet, under our manner of securing them, they continued to increase.

White men commenced netting them for market about the year 1840, These men were known as professional pigeoners, from the fact that they banded themselves together, so as to keep in telegraphic communication with these great moving bodies. In this they became so expert as to be almost continually on the borders of their brooding places. As they were always prepared with trained stool-pigeons and flyers, which they carried with them, they were enabled to call down the passing flocks and secure as many by net as they were able to pack in ice and ship to market. In the year 1848 there were shipped from Catteraugus County, N, Y., eighty tons of these birds; and from that time to 1878 the wholesale slaughter continued to increase, and in that year there were shipped from