THK IWSSKNGEU PIGEOJf, 377 



In a few hours they fill many sacks, and load liorse.s wifli iIkmii. liy the Indians, a 

 pigeon-roost or breedino-place is considered an important source of national profit and 

 dependence for that season, and all their active ingenuity is exercised on the occasion. 

 The breeding-places differ from the roosting-places in their greater extent. In the western 

 countries, as the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, these arc generally in back- 

 woods, and often extend in nearly a straight line across the country for a great way. 

 Not far from Shelbj'ville, in the state of Kentucky, some years ago, there was one of 

 these breeding-places, which stretched through tlio woods in nearly a north and south 

 direction, was several miles in breadth, and was, said to be upwards of forty miles in 

 extent. In this tract almost every tree was furnished with nests, wherever the branches 

 could accommodate them. 



The pigeons made their first appearance there about the 10th of April, and left it 

 altogether with their young before the 25th of May. As soon as the young were fully 

 grown, and before tliey left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants, from all parts 

 of the adjacent country, came with waggons, axes, beds, cooking utensils ; many of them 

 accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this 

 immense nursery. Several of them stated that tlie noise was so great as fo terrify their 

 horses, and that it was difficult for any person to hear another speak without bawling in 

 his ear. The ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young squab 



IIEAU OF COLUMBA COKONAIA. HEAD OF COLUMIiA MIGRATORIA. 



pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were 

 fiittening. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, and seizino- 

 the squabs from the nests at pleasure, while, from twenty feet upwards to the top of the 

 trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowdino- and flut- 

 tering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled ^vith the frequent 

 crash of falling timber : for now the axemen were at work cutting down those trees that 

 seemed to be most crowded with nests, and contriving to fell them in such a manner that 

 in their descent they might bring down several others ; by which means the fallino- of 

 one large tree sometimes produced two hundred squabs, little inferior in size to the old 

 ones, and almost one heap of fat. On some single trees upwards of one hundred nests were 

 found, each containing one squab only ; a circumstance in the history of this bird not 

 generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to walk under these flying and flut- 

 tering millions, from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of 

 the multitudes above, and which, in their descent, often destroyed numbers of the birds 

 themselves ; whilst the clothes of those engaged in traversing the woods were completely 

 covered with the excrements of the jDigeons. 



These circumstances were related to Wilson by many of the most respectable portion of 

 the community in that quarter, and were confirmed in part by what he himself witnessed 

 " I passed," he says, " for several miles through this same breeding-place, where every 



