icked up and piled
in heaps until each had as many as they could possible dispose of,
when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.

"The breeding-places are selected with reference to abundance of food,
and countless myriads resort to them. At this period the note of the
pigeon is coo coo coo, like that of the domestic species but much
shorter. They caress by billing, and during incubation the male
supplies the female with food. As the young grow, the tyrant of
creation appears to disturb the peaceful scene, armed with axes to
chop down the squab-laden trees, and the abomination of desolation and
destruction produced far surpasses even that of the roosting places."

Pokagon, an educated Indian writer, says: "I saw one nesting-place in
Wisconsin one hundred miles long and from three to ten miles wide.
Every tree, some of them quite low and scrubby, had from one to fifty
nests on each. Some of the nests overflow from the oaks to the hemlock
and pine woods. When the pigeon hunters attack the breeding-places
they sometimes cut the timber from thousands of acres. Millions are
caught in nets with salt or grain for bait, and schooners, sometimes
loaded down with the birds, are taken to New York where they are sold
for a cent apiece."

V

YOUNG HUNTERS

American Head-hunters--Deer--A Resurrected
Woodpecker--Muskrats--Foxes and Badgers--A Pet
Coon--Bathing--Squirrels--Gophers--A Burglarious Shrike.

In the older eastern States it used to be considered great sport for
an army of boys to assemble to hunt birds, squirrels, and every other
unclaimed, unprotected live thing of shootable size. They divided into
two squads, and, choosing leaders, scattered through the woods in
different directions, and the party that killed the greatest number
enjoyed a supper at the expense of the other. The whole neighborhood
seemed to enjoy the shameful sport especially the farmers afraid of
their crops. With a great air of importance, laws were enacted to
govern the gory business. For example, a gray squirrel must count four
heads, a woodchuck six heads, common red squirrel two heads, black
squirrel ten heads, a partridge five heads, the larger birds, such as
whip-poor-wills and nighthawks two heads each, the wary crows three,
and bob-whites three. But all the blessed company of mere songbirds,
warblers, robins, thrushes, orioles, with nuthatches, chickadees, blue
jays, woodpeckers, etc., counted only one head