CHAPTER VII 



Comments of an Eminent Observer, John J. 



Audubon, in Kentucky — The Green 



River Nestings 



EARLY in May, 1810, John J. Audubon, the nat- 

 uralist, reached the bank of Green river, in 

 Kentucky, and described the nesting ground of the pas- 

 senger pigeons he saw there in the following words : 



''It was, as is always the case, a portion of the 

 forest where the trees were of great magnitude, and 

 where there was little underwood. I rode through it 

 upwards of forty miles, and found its average breadth 

 to b6 rather more than three miles. My first view of 

 it was about a fortnight subsequent to the period when 

 they had made choice of it, and I arrived there nearly 

 two hours before sunset. 



"Few pigeons were then to be ?een, but a great 

 number of persons with horses, wagons, guns and am- 

 munition had already established encc.mpments on the 

 borders. Two farmers from the vicinity of Russell- 

 ville, distant more than a hundred miles, had driven 

 upward of three hundred hogs to be fattened on the 

 pigeons that were to be slaughtered. Here and there 

 the people employed in plucking and salting what had 

 already been procured were seen sitting in the midst 

 of large piles of birds. Many trees two feet in diame- 

 ter I observed were broken off at no great distance 



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