BIRDS OF NELSON COUNTY. 43 



forty milles in extent ! In this tract almost every tree 

 was furnished with nests, wherever the branches could ac- 

 commodate them. The pigeons made their first appear- 

 ance there about the 10th of April, and left it altogether, 

 with their young, before the 25th of May. As soon as 

 the young were fully grown, and before they left the 

 nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants, from all parts 

 of the adjacent country, came with wagons, axes, beds, 

 cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the 

 greater part of their families, and encamped for several 

 days at the immense nursery. Several of them informed 

 me that the noise in the wood was so great as to terrify 

 their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to 

 hear another speak without bawling in his ear. The 

 ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and 

 squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, 

 and on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buz- 

 zards, and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, 

 and seizing the squabs from their nests at pleasure, while 

 from twenty 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 axe-men were at work 

 cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowded 

 with nests, and continued 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. It was dangerous to walk under these flying and 



