Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 July 1874 — A Michigan Pigeon Roost. [ARTICLE]

A Michigan Pigeon Roost.

Imagine, |f-you eat, kjtjricf of land about sixteen miles long and three wide, w here every bough is occupied by a dozen nests and a hundred birds, where the air whirrs from dawn till dark with ceaseless wings going and coming; where the flights that settle cover square acres with a living carpej, where from 250 to 400 dnen have for 'six weeks or more been engaged in trapping and killing without cessation or let, and yet not made the numbers appreciably less; imagine fifty square miles of pigeons, and that is the scene. ,As the old birds leave or are destroyed by of young ones take the wing, and almost daily armies of reinforcements fly northward from far-away Kentucky and Missouri, the beat of whose wings and whose countless numbers obscure the sky and e “» 4 a hollow roar as if a tornado or thunder-storm were approaching. |

There we throe regular “ flights” a day —two“ tom-Uiglits” andonc “hen-flight. At early dawn the male birds set out flying to the east and north to seek a breakfast of Seeds and berries, ten, twenty, or fifty utiles away, and by six or half-past six the sky*is black with the departing birds. They tower up in great armies to a considerable height, each sheet of birds—sheet is the word; that best describes them —wavering a moment like the needle of the compass when disturbed, then taking flight in the appointed direction with a unanimity and evenness of speed that would make one believe that every bird was aniiiiatcd by the same impulse at the same instant. An hour later not a bird is to be seen, but toward eight o’clock the rush of tie returning armies is heard. Squadron after squadron arrives, cleaving the air with unwearied wings and unfailing sense, fluttering, wheeling and descending each division over its own district, each bird over the nest of its faithful mate. As “ tom” after “ font” to take liis trick at the domestic helm, “lien” after “hen” rises upward, and the armies of the Amazons go out to the east and north. Toward nine o’clock tlic scene is indescribable. It is a very, ot : mosphere of wings, earth and forest-have been converted into feathers, and the eye gazes down vistas of pigeons to far horizons of squab pies and milmi* <le tourte* tttnrrtgn. Metropolitan readers will imagine a tract of woodland twice the width of Manhattan Island and twice as long as from the Battery to Harlem River, birds arriving in flocks of a hundred thousand, birds departing in flights as numerous, a very Broadway of the air, extending over a Whole county. By and by the hist female suffragist departs, and the meek males remain incubating. In the middle of the afternoon the “hens” return, and the “ toms” depart to make an evening of it, returning before or about sunset. The late birds, who stay out till dusk, having apparently the lateli-key to their several nests, seem bothered when returning, and fly very low,’'sweeping along the ground' until they get their bearings. Then- begins sucli a slaughter as marked the coup d'etat. Poles and clubs are the weapons, and at every sweep a dozen birds, brained, crippled or maimed, tumble to the earth. Scarcity less simple and efficient is the practice of raking them down at night with poles from the lower branches of trees where they roost. Let it lie said that the' birds often settle so thickly that boughs as large in circumference as a man’s thigh are broken off by the weight, and that the new and tender shoots are blasted by the incumbent mass. The foxes, and, later in the year, the bogs, fatten on the ungat bend hecatombs that are left dead or to die in the grass. Tlie shot-gun and the net are (lie principal weapons affected by the hunters. The beach of Crystal Lake, where the waters were lowered last year, affording a sheet of, level sand some twenty-five miles round and nearly half a mile wide, is thickly dotted with the stands of the hunters —small liuls of pine boughs in which the hunter sits with his guns. At times poles are placed for roosts without and decoys employed to induce tlie birds, like Dilla, to come and be killed, a raking discharge sweeping them front the poles literally by dozens. But when thick flights are of regular occurrence there is nothing to do but jo blaze away ami pick up the dead. The net’s do more wholesale execution, but require a larger capital. Bound a woodland spring, where the birds will stoop to drink, the smooth ground is abundantly spread with corn mingled with salt, the water of the spring being also salted with a liberal hand. For several days the birds that go thither in search of food are allowed to take their fill and carry home the good news. At last, growing bold by habit, they come not single spies, but in battalions, and settle down to *■ work” the ground systematically. They advanced en echelon , with this advantage, that being blessed with wings tlie rearward companies, *as they find corn scarce, fly over the beads of tlie front companies and settle upon unoccupied ground, in turn to become again the rear guard. When, therefore, this salted ground becomes the regular resort of’flights of birds 4,000 or 5,000 strong the woodland free-luneh system is abolished, anil the birds are made to “ pay witli their persons,” as the French would say. The nets suspended on stakes round tlie ground are struck, there is a hurried and thunderous roar of wings as those most happy fly off. and the earth is covered with a carpet of dark blue. The net rustics anil undulates •with the efforts of tlie imprisoned birds to escape. Then the trapper comes out and releases them one by one. If lie is'trapping for market lie wrings their necks anil they are barreled and carted away. If it is intended to sell them alive they are placed in l oops and shipped, or stored in barns and houses. The biggest catch of the year has been 800 birds,Though it is of -record that one trapper secured nearly 1.800 at one strike.— Cor. Neic York World.