34



cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their


families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery.


The ground was strewn 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 the nests at pleasure ; while

from twenty feet upwards to the top of the trees, the view through

the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering

multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder. .....

On some single trees, upwards of an hundred nests were found, each

containing one squab only.” Audubon, however, states that two eggs are

laid, each brood usually consisting of male and female.


Writing of one of the vast flocks of these Pigeons Wilson proceeds,

“ From right to left as far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast

procession extended, 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 Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About four

o’clock in the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky river at the town of Frank¬

fort, at which time the living torrent above my head seemed as numerous

and as extensive as ever.” Wilson estimated this flock to consist of some¬

thing over two hundred and thirtj' millions, which, he says is “probably far

below the actual amount.”


The species is found, according to the British Museum Catalogue, in

“ North America, from Hudson’s Bay southwards and westwards to the

Great Plains, straggling westward to Nevada and the Washington Territory.

Accidental in Cuba.”


That its numbers should have so rapidly decreased, that, at the

present time, it is a scarce species, if not almost an extinct one, is a

problem that we admit to being quite unable to solve.— Editor.]



BREEDING BLOODWINGS AND REDRUMPS.


Sir, — I have bred three fine young Bloodwing Parrakeets — also two

Redrnmp Parrakeets, this summer in my garden aviary. They are fine

healthy birds, but, so far, do not show by their colouring if any of

them are cocks.


I have also bred Zebra-fin dies, Cutthroats, and two Red-billed

Weavers in another aviary. Sarah E. MorshEad.


VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALES.


Sir, — In reply to the Hon. Mrs. Hawke’s letter in the October num¬

ber re the above, I have pleasure in relating my experience with Virginian

Nightingales. I have had altogether three nests of these truly interesting

birds. Twice the bird built her nest among some dead branches in the

outside portion of the aviary, and on the last occasion in a Hartz Mountain

cage inside the hut.


I may state that the hen bird did practically all the building

operations, the cock appearing to take no interest at all. In the first case



