Sportsmen are waking up to the fact that the indiscriminate and wholesale slaughter of pigeons is rapidly thinning out the species. Sporting papers are full of complaints about the manner in which netters and trappers capture and kill the birds at their nestlings in Michigan and elsewhere. It is suggested that a law be passed by all States in which the pigeon brings forth its young, prohibiting the killing or trapping of the birds for three years. It is claimed that this would give the flocks a chance to recuperate to such an extent that similar laws would not have to be passed for years afterward. As a substitute for the pigeon during the years that pigeon-destroying is barred, the marsh blackbird is suggested. This bird is very abundant on the Calumet, Kankakee, and Illinois rivers. It is claimed that they are great corn and grain destroyers, and that they could easily be spared. To show the way in which sportsmen themselves massacre pigeons, 14,000 birds have recently been caged for slaughter at Peoria. The Illinois State Sportsman's Association is holding it great annual shoot there this week.
October 28, 1879. South Kentuckian 1(42): 4. From the Chicago Journal.