2 PIGEON TRIBE. 



from Mexico to Hudson Bay, in which inhospitable region 

 it is seen even in December, weathering the severity of the 

 climate with indifference, and supporting itself upon the 

 meagre buds of the juniper when the ground is hidden by 

 inundating snows. To the west it is found to the base of the 

 Northern Andes, or Rocky Mountains, but does not appear 

 to be known beyond this natural barrier to its devious 

 wanderings. As might be supposed from its extraordinary 

 history, it is formed with peculiar strength of wing, moving 

 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 numerous hovering cir- 

 cles ; 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 migration among other birds. A 

 general and mutual attachment seems to occasion this congre- 

 gating 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 latitude of 5 1 degrees, round Hudson Bay and 

 the interior of New Hampshire, as well as in the 3 2d degree in 

 the dense forests of the great valley of the Mississippi. The 

 accidental situation of their food alone directs all their move- 

 ments ; while this continues to be suppHed they sometimes 

 remain sedentary in a particular district, as in the dense forests 

 of Kentucky, where the great body remained for years in suc- 

 cession, and were scarcely elsewhere 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 plantations of Georgia or Carolina ; 



