French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to report on passenger pigeons, during his voyage in 1534. The bird was subsequently observed and noted by historical figures such as Samuel de Champlain and Cotton Mather. Most early accounts dwell on the vast number of pigeons, the resulting darkened skies, and the enormous amount of hunted birds (50,000 birds were reportedly sold at a Boston market in 1771). The early colonists thought that large flights of pigeons would be followed by ill fortune or sickness. When the pigeons wintered outside of their normal range, some believed that they would have "a sickly summer and autumn." In the 18th and 19th centuries, various parts of the pigeon were thought to have medicinal properties. The blood was supposed to be good for eye disorders, the powdered stomach lining was used to treat dysentery, and the dung was used to treat a variety of ailments, including headaches, stomach pains, and lethargy. Though they did not last as long as the feathers of a goose, the feathers of the passenger pigeon were frequently used for bedding. Pigeon feather beds were so popular that for a time in Saint-Jérôme, Quebec, every dowry included a bed and pillows made of pigeon feathers. In 1822, one family in Chautauqua County, New York, killed 4,000 pigeons in a day solely for this purpose. The passenger pigeon was featured in the writings of many significant early naturalists, as well as accompanying illustrations. Mark Catesby's 1731 illustration, the first published depiction of this bird, is somewhat crude, according to some later commentators. The original watercolor that the engraving is based on was bought by the British royal family in 1768, along with the rest of Catesby's watercolors. The naturalists Alexander Wilson and John James Audubon both witnessed large pigeon migrations first hand, and published detailed accounts wherein both attempted to deduce the total number of birds involved. The most famous and often reproduced depiction of the passenger pigeon is Audubon's illustration (handcolored aquatint) in his book The Birds of America, published between 1827 and 1838. Audubon's image has been praised for its artistic qualities, but criticized for its supposed scientific inaccuracies. As Wallace Craig and R. W. Shufeldt (among others) pointed out, the birds are shown perched and billing one above the other, whereas they would instead have done this side by side, the male would be the one passing