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14 May 2014

Wild Pigeons Roost in Scott County

The most celebrated pigeon roost probably in the country is in Scott 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 seasons of their visits to that section of the country. They fly away a of mornings to their places of feeding in the woods and fields of Indiana and Kentucky, distant from the roost in many instances from 100 to 300 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 the. During the entire night there is heard the cracking and crushing of limbs, the hum and flurry and drumming of their 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.

January 9, 1880. Interior Journal 8(45): 4. Also: January 17, 1880 in St. Paul Daily Globe; January 21 in Princeton Union; and, March 5, 1880 in Hickman Courier.