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A Paradise of Birds · The Story of My Boyhood and Youth

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Chapter four of the Story of My Boyhood and Youth. This LibriVox recording is
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in the public domain. Recording by Sue Anderson. The Story of My Boyhood
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and Youth by John Muir, Chapter four a paradise of birds. Bird favorites,
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the prairie chickens, water fowl, a loon on the defensive, passenger
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pigeons. The Wisconsin oak openings were a summer paradise for song birds and a
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fine place to get acquainted with them, For the trees stood wide apart,
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allowing one to see the happy home seekers as they arrived in the spring,
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their mating nest building, the brooding and feeding of the young, and after
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they were full fledged and strong, to see all the families of the neighborhood
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gathering and getting ready to leave. In the fall, excepting the geese and
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ducks and pidge Nearly all of our summer birds arrived singly or in small,
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draggled flocks. But when frost and falling leaves brought their winter homes to mind,
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they assembled in large flocks on dead or leafless trees by the side of
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a meadow or field, perhaps to get acquainted and talk the thing over.
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Some species held regular daily meetings for several weeks before finally setting forth on their
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long southern journeys. Strange to say we never saw them start. Some morning
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we would find them gone. Doubtless they migrated in the night time. Comparatively
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few species remained all winter, the nuthatch, chickadee, owl, prairie chicken,
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quail, and a few stragglers from the main flocks of ducks, jays,
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hawks, and bluebirds. Only after the country was settled did either jays
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or bluebirds winter with us. The brave, frosty, fying chickadees and nuthatches
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stayed all the year, wholly independent of farms and man's food and affairs.
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With the first hints of spring came the brave little blue birds, darling singers
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as blue as the best sky, and of course we all loved them.
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Their rich, crisp warbling is perfectly delightful, soothing and cheering, sweet and
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whisperingly low. Nature's fine love touches every note, going straight home into one's
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heart and withal. They are hearty and brave, fearless fighters in defense of
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home. When we boys approached their not whole nests, the bold little fellows
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kept scolding and diving at us, and tried to strike us in the face,
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And oftentimes we were afraid they would prick our eyes. But the boldness
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of the little housekeepers only made us love them the more. None of the
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bird people of Wisconsin welcomed us more heart tardily than the common robin. Far
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from showing alarm at the coming of settlers into their native woods, they reared
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their young around our gardens as if they liked us. And how heartily we
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admired the beauty and fine manners of these graceful birds, and their loud,
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cheery song of fear not, fear not, chirrup, cheer up. It
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was easy to love them, for they reminded us of the robin redbreast of
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Scotland. Like the blue birds, they dared every danger in defensive home,
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and we often wondered that birds so gentle could be so bold, and that
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sweet voiced singers could so fiercely fight and scold. Of all the great singers
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that sweetened Wisconsin, one of the best known and best loved is the brown
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thrush or thrasher, strong and able, without being familiar, and easily seen
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and heard, rosy purple evenings after thundershowers are the favorite song. Times when
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the winds have died away, and the steaming ground and the leaves and flowers
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fill the air with fragrance. Then the male makes haste to the topmost spray
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of an oak tree and sings loud and clear, with delightful enthusiasm until sundown.
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Mostly I suppose for his mate sitting on the precious eggs in a brush
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heap, and how faithful and watchful and daring he is. Woe to the
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snake or squirrel that ventured to go nigh the nest. We often saw him
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diving on them, pecking them about the head, and driving them away as
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bravely as the kingbird drives away hawks. Their rich and varied strains made the
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air fairly quiver. We boys often tried to interpret the wild ringing melody and
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put it into words. After the arrival of the thrushes came the bobblinx,
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gushing, gurgling, inexhaustible fountains of song, pouring forth floods of sweet notes
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over the broad Fox River meadows in one wonderful variety and volume, crowded and
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mixed beyond description. As they hovered on, quivering wings above their hidden nests
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in the grass. It seemed marvelous to us that birds so moderate in size
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could hold so much of this wonderful song stuff. Each one of them poured
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forth music enough for a whole flock, singing as if its whole body,
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feathers, and all were made up of music. Flowing, glowing, bubbling
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melody interpenetrated here and there with small, scintillating prickles and spicules. We never
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became so intimately acquainted with the Bobblinks as with the thrushes, for they lived
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far out on the broad Fox River meadows, while the thrushes sang on the
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tree tops around every home. The boblinks were among the first of our great
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singers to leave us in the fall, going apparently direct to the rice fields
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of the Southern States, where they grew fed and were slaughtered in countless numbers
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for food. Sad fate for singers so purely divine. One of the gayest
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of the singers is the red winged blackbird. In the spring, when his
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scarlet epaulets shine brightest and his little, modest gray wife is sitting on the
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nest built on rushes in a swamp, he sits on a nearby oak and
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devotedly sings almost all day. His rich simple strain is bompully, boom pully,
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or boppuli, as interpreted by some. In summer, after nesting cares
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are over, they assemble in flocks of hundreds and thousands to feast on Indian
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corn when it is in the milk scattering over a field. Each selects an
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ear, strips the husk down far enough to lay bare an inch or two
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of the end of it, enjoys an exhilarating feast, and after all are
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full, they rise simultaneously with a quick beer of wings, like an old
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fashioned church congregation, fluttering to their feet. When the minister, after giving
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out the hymn, says, let the congregation arise and sing, Alighting on
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nearby trees, they sing with a hearty vengeance, bursting out without any puttering
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prelude, in glorious glad concert hundreds or thousands of exulting voices with sweet,
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gurgling bompalise, mingled with chippy, vibrant and exploding gobules of musical notes,
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making a most enthusiastic, indescribable joy song, a combination unlike anything to be
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heard elsewhere in the bird kingdom, something like bagpipes, flutes, violins,
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pianos, and human like voices, all bursting and bubbling at once. Then
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suddenly someone of the joyful congregation shouts, cheer, cheer, and all stop
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as if shot. The sweet voiced meadow lark, with its placid, simple
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song of pierie eerie ordico, was another favorite, and we soon learned to
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admire the Baltimore oriole and its wonderful hanging nests, and the scarlet tanager glowing
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like fire amid the green leaves. But no singer of them all got farther
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into our hearts than the little speckled breasted song sparrow, one of the first
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to arrive and begin nest building and singing. The richness, sweetness, and
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pathos of this small darling song as he sat on a low bush, often
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brought tears to our eyes. The little cheery, modest chickadee midget, loved
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by every innocent boy and girl, man and woman, and by many not
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altogether innocent, was one of the first of the birds to attract our attention,
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drawing nearer and nearer to us as the winter advanced, bravely singing his
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faint, silvery lisping, tinkling notes, ending with a bright dee dee dee.
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However, never frosty the weather, the nuthatches, who also stayed all
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winter with us, were favorites with us boys. We loved to watch them
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as they traced the bark furrows of the oaks and hickoryes, head downward,
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deftly flicking off loose scales and splinters in search of insects, and braving the
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coldest weather, as if their little sparks of life were as safely warm in
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winter as in summer, unquenchable by the severest frost. With the help of
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the chickadees, they made a delightful stir in the solemn winter days, And
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when we were out chopping, we never ceased to wonder how their slender naked
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toes could be kept warm when our own were so painfully frosted, though clad
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in thick socks and boots. And we wondered and admired the more when we
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thought of the little midgets sleeping in knot holes when the temperature was far below
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zero, sometimes thirty five degrees below, and in the morning, after a
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minute breakfast of a few frozen insects and hoar frost crystals, playing and chatting
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in cheery tones, as if food, weather, and everything was according to
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their own warm hearts. Our yankee told us that the name of this darling
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was Devil Downhead. Their big neighbors, the owls, also made good winter
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music, singing out loud in wild gallant strains, bespeaking brave comfort. Let
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the frostbite as it might. The solemn hooting of the species with the widest
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throat seemed to us the very wildest of all the winter sounds. Prairie chickens
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came strolling in family flocks about the shanty, picking seeds and grasshoppers like domestic
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fowls, and they became still more abundant as wheat and corn fields were multiplied,
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but also wilder, of course, when every shotgun in the country was
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aimed at them. The booming of the males during the mating season was one
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of the loudest and strangest of the early spring sounds, being easily heard on
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calm mornings at a distance of half or three fourths of a mile. As
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soon as the snow was off the ground. They assembled in flocks of a
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dozen or two on an open spot, usually on the side of a plowed
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field, ruffled up their feathers, inflated the curious colored sacks on the sides
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of their necks, and strutted about with queer gestures, something like turkey gobblers,
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uttering strange, loud, rounded drumming calls boom boom, boom, interrupted
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by choking sounds. My brother Daniel caught one while she was sitting on her
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nest in our cornfield. The young are just like domestic chicks, run with
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the mother as soon as hatched, and stay with her until autumn, feeding
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on the ground, never taking wing unless disturbed. In winter, when full
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grown, they assemble in large flocks, fly about sundown to selected roosting places
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on tall trees, and to feeding places in the morning. Unhusked cornfields,
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if any, are to be found in the neighborhood, or thickets of dwarf
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birch and willows, the buds of which furnish a considerable part of their food
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when snow covers the ground. The wild rice marshes along the Fox River and
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around Puckaway Lake were the summer homes of millions of ducks, and in the
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Indian summer, when the rice was ripe, they grew very fat. The
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magnificent Mallards in particular, afforded our Yankee neighbors royal feasts almost without a price,
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for often as many as a half dozen were killed at a shot.
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But we seldom were allowed a single hour for hunting, and so got very
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few. The autumn duck season was a glad time for the Indians also,
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for they feasted and grew fat, not only on the ducks, but on
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the wild rice, large quantities of which they gathered as they glided through the
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midas of the generous crop in canoes, bending down handfuls over the sides and
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beating out the grain with small paddles. The warmth of the deep spring fountains
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of the creek in our meadow kept it open all the year, and a
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few pairs of wood ducks, the most beautiful we thought of all the ducks,
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wintered in it. I well remember the first specimen I ever saw.
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Father shot it in the creek during a snow storm, brought it into the
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house and called us around him, saying, come, Barnes and admire the
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work of God displayed in this bonny bird. Nobody but God could paint feathers
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like these. Just look at the colors, how they shine, and how
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fine they overlap and blend together, like the colors of the rainbow. And
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we all agreed that never, never before had we seen so awful bonny a
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bird. A pair nested every year in the hollow top of an oak stump
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about fifteen feet high that stood on the side of the meadow, and we
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used to wonder how they got the fluffy young ones down from the nest and
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across the meadow to the lake, when they were only helpless featherless midgets.
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Whether the mother carried them to the water on her back or in her mouth.
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I never saw the thing done, or found anybody who had, until
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this summer, when mister Holabird, a keen observer, told me that he
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once saw the mother carry them from the nest tree in her mouth, quickly
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coming and going to a nearby stream, and in a few minutes get them
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all together and proudly sail away. Sometimes a flock of swans were seen passing
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over at a great height on their long journeys, and we admired their clear
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bugle notes. But they seldom visited any of the lakes in our neighborhood so
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seldom that when they did it was talked of for years. One was shot
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by a blacksmith on a mill pond with a long rain sharp rifle, and
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many of the neighbors went far to see it. The common gray goose Canada
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honker, flying in regular harrow shaped flocks, was one of the wildest and
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wariest of all the large birds that enlivened the spring and autumn. They seldom
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ventured to alight in our small lake fearing I suppose that hunters might be concealed
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in the rushes, But on account of their fondness for the young leaves of
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winter wheat, when they were a few inches high, they often alighted on
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our fields when passing on their way south, and occasionally even in our corn
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fields when a snow storm was blowing and they were hungry and wing weary,
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with nearly an inch of snow on their backs. In such times of distress,
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we used to pity them, even while trying to get a shot at
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them. They were exceedingly cautious and circumspect, usually flew several times around the
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adjacent thickets and fences to make sure that no enemy was near before settling down,
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and one always stood on guard, relieved from time to time while the
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flock was feeding. Therefore, there was no chance to creep up on them
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unobserved. You had to be well hidden before the flock arrived. It was
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the ambition of boys to be able to shoot these wary birds. I never
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got but two, both of them at one so called lucky shot. When
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I ran to pick them up. One of them flew away, but as
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the poor fellow was sorely wounded, he didn't fly far. When I caught
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him after a short chase, he uttered a piercing cry of terror and despair,
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which the leader of the flock heard at a distance of about a hundred
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rods. They had flown off in frightened disorder, of course, but had
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got into the regular harrow shaped order when the leader heard the cry, and
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I shall never forget how bravely he left his place at the head of the
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flock and hurried back, screaming and struck at me. In trying to save
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his companion. I dodged down and held my hands over my head, and
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thus escaped a blow of his elbows. Fortunately I had left my gun at
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the fence, and the life of this noble bird was spared after he had
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risked it in trying to save his wounded friend or neighbor or family relation.
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For so shy a bird boldly to attack a hunter showed wonderful sympathy and courage.
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This is one of my strangest hunting experiences. Never before had I regarded
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wild geese as dangerous or capable of such noble self sacrificing devotion. The loud,
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clear call of the handsome bob whites was one of the pleasantest and most
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characteristic of our spring sounds, and we soon learned to imitate it so well
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that a bold cok often accepted our challenge and came flying to fight. The
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young run as soon as they are hatched, and follow their parents until spring,
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roosting on the ground in a close bunch, heads out ready to scatter
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and fly. These fine birds were seldom seen when we first arrived in the
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wilderness, but when wheat fields supplied abundance of food, they multiplied very fast,
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although oftentimes sore pressed during hard winters, when the snow reached a depth
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of two or three feet, covering their food while the mercury fell to twenty
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or thirty degrees below zero. Occasionally, although shy on account of being persistently
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hunted under pressures of extreme hunger. In the very coldest weather, when the
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snow was deepest, they ventured into barnyards and even approached the doorsteps of houses,
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searching for any sort of scraps and crumbs, as if piteously begging for
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food. One of our neighbors saw a flock come creeping up through the snow,
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unable to fly, hardly able to walk, and while approaching the door,
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several of them actually fell down and died, showing that birds, usually
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so vigorous and apparently independent of fortune, suffer and lose their lives in extreme
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weather, like the rest of us, frozen to death, like settlers caught
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in blizzards. None of our neighbors perished in storms, though many had feet,
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ears, and fingers frost nipped or solidly frozen. As soon as the
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lake ice melted, we heard the lonely cry of the loon, one of
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the wildest and most striking of all the wilderness. Sounds a strange, sad,
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mournful, unearthly cry, half laughing, half wailing. Nevertheless, the
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great northern diver, as our species is called, is a brave, hardy,
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beautiful bird, able to fly under water about as well as above it,
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and to spear and capture the swiftest fishes for food. Those that haunted
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our lake were so weary none was shot for years, though every boy hunter
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in the neighborhood was ambitious to get one to prove his skill. On one
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of our bitter cold New Year holidays, I was surprised to see a loon
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in the small open part of the lake at the mouth of the inlet that
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was kept from freezing by the warm spring water. I knew that it could
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not fly out of so small a place, for these heavy birds have to
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beat the water for half a mile or so before they can get fairly on
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the wing. Their narrow, fin like wings are very small as compared with
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the weight of the body, and are evidently made for flying through water as
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well as through the air. And it is by means of their swift flight
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through the water and the swiftness of the blow they strike with their long spearlike
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bills, that they are able to capture the fishes on which they feed.
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I ran down the meadow with the gun, got into my boat, and
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pursued that poor winter bound straggler. Of course, he dived again and again,
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but had to come up to breathe, and I at length got a
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quick shot at his head, and slightly wounded or stop him, caught him
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and ran proudly back to the house with my prize. I carried him in
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my arms. He didn't struggle to get away or offer to strike me,
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And when I put him on the floor in front of the kitchen stove,
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he just rested quietly on his belly, as noiseless and motionless, as if
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he were a stuffed specimen on a shelf, held his neck erect, gave
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no sign of suffering from any wound, and though he was motionless, his
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small black eyes seemed to be ever keenly watchful. His formidable bill, very
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sharp, three or three and a half inches long and shaped like a pickaxe,
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was held perfectly level. But the wonder was that he did not struggle
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or make the slightest movement. We had a tortoise shell cat, an old
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tom of great experience, who was so fond of lying under the stove in
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frosty weather that it was difficult even to poke him out with a broom.
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But when he saw and smelled that strange, big, fishy, black and
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white, speckly bird, the like of which he had never before seen.
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He rushed wildly to the farther corner of the kitchen, looked back cautiously and
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suspiciously, and began to make a careful study of the handsome but dangerous looking
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stranger. Becoming more and more curious and interested, he at length advanced a
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step or two for a nearer view and nearer smell, And as the wonderful
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bird kept absolutely motionless, he was encouraged to venture gradually nearer and nearer,
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until within perhaps five or six feet of its breast. Then, the weary
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loon, not liking Tom's looks, in so near a view, which perhaps
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recalled to his mind the plundering minks and muskrats he had to fight when they
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approached his nest, prepared to defend himself by slowly, almost imperceptibly, drawing
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back his long pickaxe bill, and without the slightest fuss or stir held it
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at level and ready just over his tail. With that dangerous bill drawn so
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far back out of the way, Tom's confidence in the stranger's peaceful intentions seemed
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almost complete, and thus encouraged, he at last ventured forward with wondering,
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questioning eyes and quivering nostrils, until he was only eighteen or twenty inches from
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the loon's smooth white breast. When the beautiful bird, apparently as peaceful and
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inoffensive as a flower, saw that his hairy yellow enemy had arrived at the
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right distance, the loon, who evidently was a fine judge of the reach
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of his spear, shot it forward quick as a lightning flash, in marvelous
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contrast to the wonderful slowness of the preparatory posing backward motion. The aim was
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true to a hair breadth. Tom was struck right in the center of his
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forehead. Between them, I thought his skull was cracked. Perhaps it was
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the sudden astonishment of that outraged cat. The virtuous indignation and wrath, terror,
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and pain are far beyond description. His eyes and screams and desperate retreat
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told all that when the blow was received, he made a noise that I
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never heard a cat make before or since, an awfully deep, condensed,
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screechy, explosive whook as he bounced straight up in the air like a bucking
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broncho. And when he alighted after his spring, he rushed madly across the
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room and made frantic efforts to climb up the hard, finished plastered wall.
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Not satisfied to get the width of the kitchen away from his mysterious enemy for
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the first time that cold winter, he tried to get out of the house
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anyhow, anywhere, out of that loon infested room. When he finally ventured
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to look back and saw that the barbarous bird was still there, tranquil and
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motionless, in front of the stove, he regained command of some of his
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shattered senses and carefully commenced to examine his wound. Backed against the wall in
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the farthest corner, and keeping his eye on the outrageous bird, he tenderly
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touched and washed the sore spot, wetting his paw with his tongue, pausing
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now and then as his courage increased, to glare and stare and growl at
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his enemy with looks and tones wonderfully human, as if saying, you confounded,
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fishy, unfair rascal, What did you do that? For? What
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had I done to you? Faithless, legless, long nose wretch. Intense
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experiences like the above bring out the humanity that is in all animals. One
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touch of nature, even a cat and loon touch makes all the world kin.
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It was a great memorable day when the first flock of passenger pigeons came
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to our farm, calling to mind the story we had read about them when
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we were at school in Scotland. Of all God's feathered people that sailed the
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Wisconsin sky, no other birds seemed to us so wonderful. The beautiful wanderers
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flew like the winds, in flocks of millions, from climate to climate,
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in accord with the weather, finding their food acorns, beech nuts, pine
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nuts, cranberries, strawberries, huckleberries, juniper berries, hackberries, buckwheat,
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rice, wheat, oats, corn, in fields and forests thousands of miles
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apart. I have seen flocks streaming south in the fall, so large that
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they were flowing over from horizon to horizon in an almost continuous stream all day
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long, at the rate of forty or fifty miles an hour, like a
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mighty river in the sky, widening, contracting, descending like falls and cataracts,
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and rising suddenly here and there in huge ragged masses like high plashing spray.
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How wonderful the distances they flew in a day, in a year,
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in a lifetime. They arrived in Wisconsin in the spring, just after the
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sun had cleared away the snow, and alighted in the woods to feed on
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the fallen acorns that they had missed the previous autumn. A comparatively small flock
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swept thousands of acres perfectly clean of acorns in a few minutes. By moving
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straight ahead with a broad front. All got their share, for the rear
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constantly became the van by flying over the flock and alighting in front. The
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entire flock constantly changing from rear to front, revolving something like a wheel with
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a low, buzzing wing boar that could be heard a long way off.
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In summer, they feasted on wheat and oats, and were easily approached as
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they rested on the trees along the sides of the field after a good full
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meal, displayed beautiful iridescent colors as they moved their necks backward and forward.
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When we went very near them, every shotgun was aimed at them, and
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everybody feasted on pigeon pies, and not a few of the settlers feasted also
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on the beauty of the wonderful birds. The breast of the male is a
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fine rosy red, the lower part of the neck, behind, and along
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the sides changing from the red of the breast to gold, emerald green,
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and rich crimson. The general color of the upper parts is grayish blue,
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and the underparts white. The extreme length of the bird is about seventeen inches,
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the finely modeled slender tail about eight inches, and extent of wings twenty
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four inches. The females are scarcely less beautiful. Oh what bonny bonny birds,
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we exclaimed over the first that fell into a hands. Oh what colors.
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Look at their breasts bonnie as roses, and at their necks are glowin
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with every color, just like the wonderful wood ducks. Oh, the bonny
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bonny creatures, they'd beat up. Where did they come from? And where
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they are going? It's awful like a sin to kill them. To this,
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some smug, practical old sinner would remark, Ah, it's a pity,
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as you say, to kill the bonny things. But they were made
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to be killed and sent for us to eat, as the coils were sent
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to God's chosen people. The Israelites when they were starving in the Desert Yon,
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the Red Sea, and I must confess that meat was never put up
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in neater handsomer painted packages. In the New England and Canada, woods beech
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nuts were their best and most abundant food. For the North, cranberries and
29:52
huckleberries. After everything was cleaned up in the North and winter was coming on,
29:57
they went south for rice, corn, acorns, haws, wild grapes,
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crab apples, sparkleberries, et cetera. They seemed to require more than
30:08
half of the continent for feeding grounds, moving from one table to another,
30:12
field to field, forest to forest, finding something ripe and wholesome all the
30:18
year round. In going south in the fine Indian summer weather, they flew
30:23
high and followed one another, though the head of the flock might be hundreds
30:27
of miles in advance, but against headwinds, they took advantage of the inequalities
30:33
of the ground, Flying comparatively low, all followed the leaders ups and downs
30:40
over hill and dale, though far out of sight, never hesitating at any
30:45
turn of the way, vertical or horizontal, that the leaders had taken.
30:48
Though the largest flocks stretched across several states and belts of different kinds of weather,
30:56
there were no roosting or breeding places near our farm, and I never
31:00
saw any of them until long after the great flocks were exterminated. I therefore
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quote from Audubon's and Pokagon's vivid descriptions. Towards evening. Audubon says, they
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depart for the roosting place, which may be hundreds of miles distant. One
31:18
on the banks of Green River, Kentucky, was over three miles wide and
31:22
forty long. My first view of it, says the great naturalists, was
31:27
about a fortnight after it had been chosen by the birds, and I arrived
31:32
there nearly two hours before sunset. Few pigeons were then to be seen,
31:37
but a great many persons, with horses and wagons, and armed with guns,
31:41
long poles, sulfur pots, pine pitch torches, et cetera, had
31:47
already established encampments on the borders. Two farmers had driven upwards of three hundred
31:52
hogs a distance of more than a hundred miles to be fattened on slaughtered pigeons.
31:59
Here and there. The people employed in plucking and salting what had already
32:04
been secured were sitting in the midst of piles of birds dung several inches thick
32:09
covered the ground. Many trees two feet in diameter were broken off at no
32:15
great distance from the ground, and the branches of many of the tallest and
32:19
largest had given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado.
32:24
Not a pigeon had arrived. At sundown. Suddenly a general cry arose,
32:30
Here they come. The noise they made, though still distant, reminded
32:35
me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close
32:38
reefed ship. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole men. The birds
32:45
continued to pour in. The fires were lighted, and a magnificent, as
32:49
well as terrifying sight presented itself. The pigeons pouring in alighted everywhere, one
32:55
above another, until solid masses were formed on the branches all around. Here
33:01
and there. The perches gave way with a crash, and falling destroyed hundreds
33:06
beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded. A
33:10
scene of uproar and conflict. I found it useless to speak or even to
33:16
shout to those persons nearest me. Even the reports of the guns were seldom
33:22
heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters
33:25
reloading, None dared venture within the line of devastation. The hogs had been
33:31
penned up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded being
33:36
left for the next morning's employment. The pigeons were constantly coming in, and
33:40
it was after midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that
33:45
arrived. The uproar continued all night, and anxious to know how far the
33:50
sound reached, I sent off a man, who, returning two hours after,
33:54
informed me that he had heard it distinctly three miles distant. Toward daylight,
34:00
the noise, in some measures subsided, long before objects were distinguishable.
34:06
The pigeons began to move off in a direction quite different from that in which
34:10
they had arrived the evening before, and at sunrise all that were able to
34:15
fly had disappeared. The howling of the wolves now reached our ears, and
34:21
the foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, coons, apossums and pole cats
34:27
were seen sneaking off, while eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied by
34:31
a crowd of vultures came to supplant them and enjoy a share of the spoil.
34:37
Then the authors of all this devastation began their entry amongst the dead,
34:42
the dying, and mangled. The pigeons were picked up and piled in heaps
34:46
until each had as many as they could possibly dispose of. When the hogs
34:52
were let loose to feed on the remainder, the breeding places are selected with
34:57
reference to abundance of food, and countless myriads resort to them at this period.
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The note of the pigeon is coo coo coo, like that of the
35:07
domestic species, but much shorter. They caress by billing, and during incubation,
35:13
the male supplies the female with food. As the young grow, the
35:16
tyrant of creation appears to disturb the peaceful scene, armed with axes to chop
35:22
down the squab laden trees, and the abomination of desolation and destruction produced far
35:30
surpasses even that of the roosting places. Pokagon and educated Indian writer says,
35:37
I saw one nesting place in Wisconsin one hundred miles long and from three to
35:42
ten miles wide. Every tree, some of them quite low and scrubby,
35:47
had from one to fifty nests on each. Some of the nests overflow from
35:52
the oaks to the hemlock and pine woods. When the pigeon hunters attack the
35:58
breeding places, they sometimes cut the timber from thousands of acres. Millions are
36:04
caught in nets with salt or grain for bait, and schooners sometimes loaded down
36:09
with the birds are taken to New York, where they are sold for a
36:14
cent apiece. End of Chapter four