214 The Passenger Pigeon 



The places where the birds are nesting are interesting 

 spots to visit. Both parents incubate and the scene is 

 animated as the birds fly about in all directions. How- 

 ever, as the bulk of the birds must fly to quite a dis- 

 tance from an immense rookery to find food, it neces- 

 sarily follows that the main flocks arrive and depart 

 evening and morning. Then the crush is often terrific 

 and the air is fairly alive with birds. The rush of their 

 thousands of wings makes a mighty noise like the sound 

 of a stiff breeze through the trees. 



Often when the large flocks settle at the roost the 

 birds crowd so closely on the slender limbs that they 

 bend down and sometimes crack, and the sound of the 

 dead branches falling from their weight adds an addi- 

 tional likeness to a storm. Sometimes the returning 

 birds will settle on a limb which holds nests and then 

 many eggs are dashed to the ground, and beneath the 

 trees of a rookery one may always find a lot of smashed 

 eggs. 



Later In the season young birds may be seen perched 

 all over the trees or on the ground, while big squabs 

 with pin-feathers on are seen in, or rather on, the frail 

 nests, or lying dead or injured on the ground. The 

 frightful destruction that is sure to accompany the nest- 

 ing of a rookery of Passenger Pigeons is bound to attract 

 the observer's eye. And we cannot but understand how 

 it is that these unprolific birds with many natural ene- 

 mies, in addition to that unnatural enemy, man, fail to 



