262 Mr Audubon on the Habits of 



miles. My first view of it was about a fortnight subsequent 

 to the period when they had chosen this spot, and I arrived 

 there nearly two hours before the setting of the sun. Few 

 pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of per- 

 sons with horses and waggons, guns, and ammunition, had 

 already established different camps on the borders. Two 

 farmers from the vicinity of Russelsville, distant more than 

 100 miles, had driven upwards of 300 hogs to be fatten- 

 ed on pigeon-meat; and here and there the people, em- 

 ployed in picking and salting what had already been pro- 

 cured, were seen sitting in the centre of large piles of those 

 birds, all proving to me that the number resorting there at 

 night must be immense, and probably consisting of all those 

 then feeding in Indiana, some distance beyond JefFerson- 

 ville, not less than 150 miles off. The dung of the birds 

 was several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the 

 roosting-place like a bed of snow. Many trees, two feet in 

 diameter, I observed, were broken at no great distance from 

 the ground, and the branches of many of the largest and tall- 

 est so much so, that the desolation , already exhibited equal- 

 led that performed by a furious tornado. As the time elapsed, 

 I saw each of the anxious persons about to prepare for action ; 

 some with sulphur in iron pots, others with torches of pine 

 knots, .many with poles, and the rest with guns double and 

 treble charged. The sun was lost to our view, yet not a 

 pigeon had yet arrived, — but all of a sudden I heard a general 

 cry of " Here they come f The noise which they made, 

 though distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing 

 through the rigging of a close reefed vessel. As the birds 

 arrived, and passed over me, I felt a current of air that sur- 

 prised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole- 

 men. The current of birds, however, kept still increasing. 

 The fires were lighted, and a most magnificent, as. well as 

 wonderful and terrifying, sight was before me. The pigeons, 

 coming in by millions, alighted everywhere, one on the top of 

 another, until masses of them resembling hanging swarms of 

 bees as large as hogsheads, were formed on every tree in all 

 directions. These heavy clusters were seen to give way, as 

 the supporting branches, breaking down with a crash, came to 



