Page:The Passenger Pigeon - Mershon.djvu/82



58 other, "That wheat was soaked in whisky." His answer fell like lead upon my heart. We had talked temperance together the night before, and the old man wept when I told him how my people had fallen before the intoxicating cup of the white man like leaves before the blast of autumn. In silence I left the place, saying in my heart, "Surely the time is now fulfilled, when false prophets shall show signs and wonders to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect."

I have read recently in some of our game-sporting journals, "A warwhoop has been sounded against some of our western Indians for killing game in the mountain region." Now, if these red men are guilty of a moral wrong which subjects them to punishment, I would most prayerfully ask in the name of Him who suffers not a sparrow to fall unnoticed, what must be the nature of the crime and degree of punishment awaiting our white neighbors who have so wantonly butchered and driven from our forests these wild pigeons, the most beautiful flowers of the animal creation of North America.

In closing this article I wish to say a few words relative to the knowledge of things about them that these birds seem to possess.

In the spring of 1866 there were scattered throughout northern Indiana and southern Michigan vast numbers of these birds. On April 10, in the morning, they commenced moving in small flocks in diverging lines