The Passenger Pigeon 15 



close together that could shot have reached them one 

 discharge could not have failed of bringing down 

 several individuals. From right to left, far as the eye 

 could reach, the breadth of this vast procession ex- 

 tended, seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious 

 to determine how long this appearance would continue, 

 I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down to 

 observe them. It was then half-past one. I sat for 

 more than an hour, but, instead of a diminution of this 

 prodigious procession, it seemed rather to increase both 

 in numbers and rapidity, and, anxious to reach Frank- 

 fort before night, I rose and went on. About four 

 o'clock in the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky River 

 at the town of Frankfort, at which time the living tor- 

 rent above my head seemed as numerous and as ex- 

 tensive as ever. Long after this I observed them in 

 large bodies that continued to pass for six or eight 

 minutes, and these again were followed by other de- 

 tached bodies, all moving in the same southeast direc- 

 tion, till after six in the evening. The great breadth 

 of front which this mighty multitude preserved would 

 seem to intimate a corresponding breadth of their breed- 

 ing place, which, by several gentlemen who had lately 

 passed through part of it, was stated to me at several 

 miles. It was said to be in Green County, and that 

 the young began to fly about the middle of March. 

 On the seventeenth of April, forty-nine miles beyond 

 Danville, and not far from Green River, I crossed this 



