400 LAND-BIRDS. 



multitude, and yet probably far below the actual amount. 

 Computing each of these to consume half a pint of mast 

 daily, the whole quantity at this rate would equal seventeen 

 millions, four hundred and twenty-four thousand bushels per 

 day ! Heaven has wisely and graciously given to these birds 

 rapidity of flight and a disposition to range over vast uncul- 

 tivated tracts of the earth ; otherwise they must have perished 

 in the districts where they resided, or devoured up the whole 

 productions of agriculture as well as those of the forests. 



" A few observations on the mode of flight of these birds 

 must not be omitted. The appearance of large detached 

 bodies of them in the air, and the various evolutions they dis- 

 play, are strikingly picturesque and interesting. In descend- 

 ing the Ohio by myself in the month of February, I often 

 rested on my oars to contemplate their aerial manoeuvres. A 

 column, eight or ten miles in length, would appear from Ken- 

 tucky, high in air, steering across to Indiana. The leaders 

 of this great body would sometimes gradually vary their 

 course, until it formed a large bend of more than a mile in 

 diameter, those behind tracing the exact route of their pre- 

 decessors. This would continue sometimes long after both 

 extremities were beyond the reach of sight, so that the whole 

 with its glittery undulations, marked a space on the face of 

 the heavens resembling the windings of a vast and majestic 

 river. When this bend became very great, the birds, as if 

 sensible of the unnecessary circuitous course they were tak- 

 ing, suddenly changed their direction, so that what was be- 

 fore in column became an immense front, straightening all its 

 indentures, until it swept the heavens in one vast and infi- 

 nitely extended line. Other lesser bodies also united with 

 each other, as they happened to approach, with such ease and 

 elegance of evolution, forming new figures, and varying these 

 as they united or separated, that I was never tired of con- 

 templating them. Sometimes a Hawk would make a sweep 

 on a particular part of the column, from a great height, when, 

 almost as quick as lightning, that part shot downwards out 

 of the common track ; but soon rising again, continued ad- 

 vancing at the same height as before ; this inflection was con- 



