630 



PIGEON TRIBE. 



derings. As might be supposed from its extraordinary 

 history, it is formed with peculiar strength of wing, mov- 

 ing through the air with extreme rapidity, urging its 

 flight also by quick and very muscular strokes. During 

 the season of amorous address it often flies out in numer- 

 ous hovering circles; and while thus engaged, the tips of 

 the great wing feathers are heard to strike against each 

 other, so as to produce a very audible sound. 



The almost incredible and unparalleled associations 

 which the species form with each other, appear to have 

 no relation with the usual motives to mio^ration amonor 

 other birds. A general and mutual attachment seems to 

 occasion this congregating propensity. Nearly the whole 

 species, which at any one time inhabit the continent, are 

 found together in the same place ; they do not fly from 

 climate, as they are capable of enduring its severity and 

 extremes. They are even found to breed in the lati- 

 tude of 51° round Hudson's Bay, and the interior of 

 New Hampshire, as well as in the 32d degree in the 

 dense forests of the great valley of the Mississippi. The 

 accidental situation of their food alone directs all their 

 movements ; while this continues to be supplied, they 

 sometimes remain sedentary in a particular district, as in 

 the dense forests of Kentucky, where the great body re- 

 mained for years in succession, and were scarcely else- 

 where to be found ; and here, at length, when the mast 

 happened to fail, they disappeared for several years. 



The rapidity of flight, so necessary in their vast 

 domestic movements, is sufficiently remarkable. The 

 Pigeons killed near the city of New York, have been 

 found with their crops full of rice collected in the planta- 

 tions of Georgia or Carolina ; and as this kind of food is di- 

 gested by them entirely in 12 hours, they must have travel- 

 led probably 3 or 4 hundred miles in about the half of that 



