X Xl 



0)1 the Common Pigeon, 171 



Ctxme -with wagons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of tliem accompanied 

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

 immense nursery. Several of them informed me, that the noise in the ^voods 

 was so great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for one person 

 to hear another speak, without bawling in his ear. The ground was strewed 

 with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young Squab Pigeons, which had been 

 precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, 

 Buzzards, and Eagles, were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the 

 Squabs from their nests at pleasure ; while, from twenty feet upwards to the 

 tops of the trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult 

 of crowding and fluttering multitudes of Pigeons, their wings roaring like 

 thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber ; for now the axe- 

 men were at work, cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowded 

 with nests, and contrived to fell them in such a manner, that, in their descent, 

 they might bring down several others ; by which means the falling of one 

 large tree sometimes produced two hundred Squabs, little inferior in size to 

 the old ones, and almost one mass of Hit. On some single trees, upwards of 

 one hundred nests were found, each containing one young only ; a circum- 

 stance, in the history of this bird, not generally known to naturalists. It 

 was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from the 

 frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of the multitudes 

 bove, and which, in then* descent, often destroyed numbers of the birds 

 themselves ; while the clothes of those engaged in traversing the woods were 

 completely covered with the excrements of the Pigeons. 



" These circumstances were related to me by many of the most respectable 

 part of the community in that quarter, and were confirmed in part, by what 

 I myself witnessed. I passed for several miles through this same breeding 

 place, where every tree was spotted with nests, the remains of those above 

 described. In many instances, I counted upwards of ninety nests on a single 

 tree ; but the Pigeons had abandoned this place for another, sixty or eighty 

 miles off, towards Green Kiver^ where they were said at that time to be 

 equally numerous. From the great numbers thai were constantly passing 

 over head to or from that quarter, I had no doubt of the truth of this state- 

 ment. The mast had been chiefly consumed in Kentucky, and the Pigeons, 

 every morning, a little before sunrise, set out for the Indiana territory, the 

 nearest part of which was about sixty miles distant. Many of these returned 

 "before ten o'clock, and the great body generally appeared, on their retmii, a 

 little after noon. 



'' I had left the public road to visit the remains of the breeding place near 

 Shelbyville, and was traversing the woods with my gun, on my way to 

 Pranld'ort, when, about one o'clock, the Pigeons, which I had observed 

 flying the greater part of the morning northerly, began to return, in such 

 immense numbers as I never before had witnessed. Coming to an opening, 

 by the side of a creek called the Benscn, where I had a more uninterupted 

 view, I was astonished at their appearance. They were flying, with great 

 steadiness and rapidity, at a height beyond gun-^ot, in several strata deep, 



