The Passenger Pigeon 13 



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 saihng about in great numbers, and seizing the 

 squabs from their nests at pleasure; while from t^venty 

 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 ax-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 fat. On some single trees 

 upwards of one hundred nests were found, each con- 

 taining one young only; a circumstance 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 above, and 

 which, in their 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 



