Big Pigeon Hunt by Professional Hunters in Tennessee

Big Pigeon Hunt by Professional Hunters

Three gentlemen of Philipsburg, Pennsylvania, Messrs. Charles Copelin, Frank Chickering and John J. Swartz, professional pigeon hunters, arrived in this city yesterday from Michigan, having followed a large body of wild pigeons from Grand Rapids, through Indiana and Kentucky to this State. They came by way of Cumberland Gap and are, we believe, the first professional pigeon hunters who ever came South in pursuit of their game.

Mr. Copelin remained in the city last night while the other two gentlemen went down the road to Ooltewah, a short distance from Chattanooga, in two miles of which place the pigeons are said to be roosting in large numbers.

The birds are taken in an enormous net, into which they are decoyed by a stool-pigeon, fastened there for the purpose. When caught, they are sent to New York for market, where they bring, on an average, $2.00 per dozen. It is a paying business in the Northwest, where they are caught in immense numbers. Sixty dozens are sometimes caught at one spring of the net. On an extraordinary occasion a train carried nine tons of these pigeons from Michigan to New York, which so flooded the market as to reduce the price to 75 cents per dozen.

October 26, 1871. Big pigeon hunt. Knoxville Daily Chronicle 2(148): 4.

Great Virginia Pigeon Roost

Sportsmen are now having an exciting time in Buckingham county, Va. A correspondent, writing under date of the 16th ult., describes the great "pigeon roost" on the old furnace lands near Canton. He says:

"The area of the roost is four square miles, and to one who never saw a sight of the kind it is truly amazing. From one hour of sun until night the air is darkened with countless thousands of the birds flying from all directions (south of the river) inward to the roost. There is a grandeur indescribable in the mournful sounds of rushing wings as the trackless armies, marshaled in the "viewless wind," come sweeping to their bivouac. But the evening sight is not to be compared to that of the morning when the pigeons are leaving the roost. Rising upwards from the bushes like columns of blue smoke, the rays of the morning sun paint them with rainbow tints, and a canopy overshadows the woods like the sulphurous clouds above the battlefield. Wheeling in great divisions in the air, they divide, each army to its leader, and the heavens grow lighter as they disappear to refill their craws with acorns."

February 24, 1872. [Great Virginia pigeon roost.] Charleston Daily News 11(1912): 2. Also: February 28, 1872 in Daily Phoenix issued at Columbia, S.C.; March 7, 1872 in Waynesboro Village Record 24(40): 2.

Wild Pigeon of California - Ectopistes Migratoria

The wild pigeon of the Pacific coast differs from its prototype, the passenger pigeon of the Atlantic States, only in being a larger bird, with a darker plumage. It is equally migratory in its habits, but never seen collectively in such large numbers as characterize the assemblages and migrations of the passenger pigeon in other parts of the world. A few hundreds at most, being as many as are ever seen together for any length of time in one place.

They are found in the foothills and lower mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Coast Range, principally in Autumn, at the season of the ripening of the madrone berries. Their food consisting of berries, the seeds of weeds and grasses, and grains. The California pigeon is remarkable for its symmetry of form, the extreme rapidity of its flight.

It propels itself by quickly repeated flappings of the wings, bringing these at ties closely to the body with firm strokes, and, before alighting, breaks the force of its flight by several rapid beats, as though fearing injury from coming too suddenly into contact with the object upon which it may desire to rest.

The male of this species has the throat, breast and sides brownish red; sometimes with a purplish tint, under parts of the body pale slate color or bluish white. Head blue; hind part and sides of neck changing to gold, green and bright crimson. Upper part of body blue; wing coverts marked with black spots; quills dark slate, almost black; tail feathers dark brown and blue. The female has a similar distribution of colors, but very much duller than the male.

The eastern pigeon, though not possessing the strength, size or weight of the California bird, is nevertheless capable of moving through the air at a rate of a mile a minute; and it has been killed in New York with its crop yet filled with rice collected from the fields of Georgia or South Carolina, which it must have left only five or six hours before. We say only, because as they digest their food rapidly, they must necessarily have travelled the distance within the time allowed, in order to have arrived with the rice still in its perfect, unsoftened state.

The shape of their body is oval, with a sharp pointed tail, admirably constructed for rapid evolutions, and also furnished with a pair of long wings, moved with large and powerful muscles. The rapidity with which this bird will pass through a wood is perfectly astonishing, threading its way among the closely-grown branches with unerring course, it flashes upon the sight like a meteor, and if gone from our gaze.

The flesh of the California pigeon is dark, but its juices are rich, and by many is much liked. The young, or squabs, as they are termed, are very tender and delicate, and much more esteemed as food than the adult birds. They generally select the tallest trees they can find to breed in, and as many as a hundred nests are often seen on a single tree. The conduct of the male at this time is much like that of the domestic pigeon, elevating and depressing the body, swelling out the throat, and expanding the tail, he moves around the timorous female, uttering the soft coo-coo-coo, so familiar to everybody who has ever been near a dovecote. They lay only two eggs, elliptical in form and pure white. They pigeon never nests at any great distance from water, to which it resorts several times during the day, and when it drinks immerses it bill up to the eyes, and remains until its thirst is satisfied.

May 4, 1872. Pacific Rural Press 3(18): 1. With an illustration.

Millions of Wild Pigeons at Maryland Farm

Six Acres of Pigeons - Millions of Wild Pigeons Settling on a Farm in Maryland.

The Birds Piled in Many Places Two Feet Deep.

Cumberland, Md., October 19.

A Mr. Sehley owns a farm six miles north-west of Oakland. Six acres of the farm are covered with alder bushes, or small tree ranging from twelve to fifteen feet in height. They grow very densely on the land, and from this fact have become very generally known as bushes. Some ten days since, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, a large flock of wild pigeons settled down upon the alders. Mr. Sehley say they were to be numbered by thousands, and completely covered the tops of the bushes, hiding them from flight. Another flock followed, and lighted on top of the first. The incoming of pigeons continued until nightfall, at which time they were piled in many places two feet deep upon each other. The bushes were many of them broken down by the weight. and it is estimated that over a million of birds were on the ground. They roosted there till morning, when flock by flock, they flew away, and by nine o'clock the fields were deserted. In the evening they again returned, and they still make this their resting place.

Singular as this story may appear, it is vouched for by many respectable citizens of this city, who have visited the spot and captured hundreds of the birds. After nightfall, it is said. a person may go among the pigeons and sweep them into a bag. The probable explanation of the immense gathering is in the fact that this is the season of their annual visit to the forest regions of the Allegheny mountains in quest of the acorns which are abundant there.

It is a well established fact that wild pigeons have but one roosting place within on very large territory, and that in their transit to warmer latitudes, and during their stoppage by the way, they use one place only as a roost at night. Other pigeon roosts have been known in the glade districts of Maryland, but this one is considered the largest ever seen by the oldest inhabitant.

November 3, 1872. Atlanta Daily Sun 3(746): 1.

Wild Pigeons at Bellefontaine in Ohio

The multitude of these feathered esculents that has visited our country this Spring, has provided quite an unexpected source of revenue, to the people in the southern part of the county — the birds being snared and shot by the thousands of dozens and shipped to New York and other points. Parties from N.Y. , and Michigan are here to capture and buy — and thousands of dollars have already been realized by our citizens. One of the New York men snare sixty-five dozens in one forenoon.

April 10, 1873. Wild pigeons. Tiffin Tribune 25(26): 3. From the Bellefontaine Republican.

Wild Pigeons Congregating Near Mandeville

Since about the first of March, last, thousands of these migratory birds have congregated within from one to four miles of Mandaville, sometimes, when on the wing, almost blackening the sky. Their number has been so great, that it is said that the timber where they roost has been materially injured by the breaking off of nearly all the limbs. Of late they have selected the smaller timber and brush, where, during the darkness of night, they can be picked or knocked off their roost, which has afforded rare sport. During the night they keep up a constant chatter and buzz throughout their whole camp and can be heard sometimes for several miles, which attracts the sportsman to their whereabouts. This migratory bird is found in all the warm and temperate regions of the globe, particularly in the former, and so numerous, that over one hundred species have been enumerated.

There have been more of them here in Saline county this spring, than we recollect ever to have seen before. Some of our sportsmen have had fine diversion shooting them on the wing. The black man, Bob, whose power we apply to our large press instead of that of steam, brought down six the other day at a single shot.

April 23, 1873. Wild pigeons. Saline County Progress 8(39): 1.

Pigeon Shooting near Sacramento

All of the shootists of the town appear to have been seized with a desire to hunt wild pigeons, and scores daily go out on the war-path. last Sunday the sound of the guns in the vicinity of Oak Grove, Mississippi Bar, etc., was like the noise of a lively skirmish between armies prior to a battle. Very few of the hunters brought many birds home, however. Yesterday another large delegation of hunters went out, and returned after dark, tired, hungry, but not weary from carrying their game. A Sacramentan did come in, however, on the train from Antelope station, whither he went from the city Sunday, and made a fine showing for his exercise, having seven dozen pigeons.

February 24, 1874. Pigeon shooting. Sacramento Daily Union 46(7142): 3.