Democratic Sentinel, Volume 3, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 November 1879 — Millions of Pigeons. [ARTICLE]

Millions of Pigeons.

The most celebrated pigeon roost probably in the country is in Scolt county, Ind., where, it is said, acres of timber are covered nightly with wild, pigeons. For the past seventy-five years this noted locality has been a roosting-place for pigeons, and millions of these birds congregate there nightly during the seaeons of their visits to that section of the country. They fy away of mornings to their feeding places in the woods and fields of Indiana and Kentucky, distant from the roost in many instances from 100 to 000 miles, returning again at night, arrivals often continuing up to midnight. The timber on thousands of acres covered by this roost is broken down badly, large limbs being snapped off like reeds by the accumulated weight of the birds upon them. Throughout the entire night there is heard the cracking and crushing of limbs, the hum and flurry and drumming of wings, the explosion of firearms and the confusion and bedlamic thrashing sounds caused by 'people beating the birds from the trees with long poles. Thousands of pigeons are killed nightly, but all this slaughter seems to make no diminution in the vast flocks that congregate at this roost.