“As soon as the young were fully grown numerous parties of inhabitants from all parts of the adjacent country came with wagons, axes, beds and cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery. The noise was so great as to terrify their horses and it was difficult for one person to hear another speak. The ground was strewn with broken limbs of trees, eggs and young squab pigeon which had been precipitated from above and upon which herds of hogs were fattening. The view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and falling multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber.”
The last great nesting was recorded at Petoskey, Michigan, in 1878. The area covered is said to have been forty miles long and 30 miles broad.
Systematic commercial hunting of the birds reached its height shortly after the Civil War. In 1879 dead birds were sold on the Chicago market at 50 cents a dozen. Pigeon hunters made from $10 to $40 a day.
The Limbless Lizard
A supposedly welcome guest in the underground chambers of leaf cutter ants is the amphisbaena, a nearly limbless lizard about a foot long which looks something like a gigantic earth worm. This creature, seldom seen, ranges from northern Brazil to lower California. When out of its habitat the amphisbaena is almost helpless and moves along the ground with feeble wriggles. Some species lay eggs; other give birth to living young.
The Maddening Tarantula
The tarantula of southern Europe—a large, hairy spider—long was credited with causing a weird, infectious madness by its bite.
The first reported effect of its poison—actually quite mild—is said to have been to put the victim into a deep lethargy from which he could be roused only by music which set into motion an overpowering impulse to get up and dance. Once the victim started to dance he could not stop until he fell to the ground from exhaustion. Then the condition supposedly was cured for a year. On the anniversary of the bite, however, the dance was involuntarily repeated. From the tarantula’s first victim the dancing mania allegedly spread like a contagious disease through the surrounding countryside. The name still is used both for an Italian dance and for the music which accompanies it.
The tarantula is a subterranean creature which hibernates in its burrow during the winter. Bees and wasps are said to be killed almost instantly by its bite. The spider always strikes at the junction of the head and thorax.