For the past two or three weeks, our citizens have been, not very pleasantly, we imagine, disturbed in their slumbers from about 4 o'clock in the morning, by a continued volley of fire-arms along the bluff on the South side of the Illinois river immediately opposite town. The place appears to be a favorite resort of immense flocks of pigeons, hundreds of which we should think are daily bagged in that vicinity. Indeed, we are told the woods in all directions abound with them, and in many cases they have proved a great annoyance and pest to farmers, rendering fruitless all their efforts to replant their corn since the cessation of the great rains; and if they continue as plenty as at present for a few months longer, they threaten to do still more damage, by eating up the now rapidly ripening wheat. So let the sportsmen keep busy in slaughtering the pesky birds.
July 3, 1858. Pigeons. Ottawa Free Trader 15(45): 3.