230 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 
extent of country in a very short time. This is 
proved by facts well known in America. Thus, pi- 
geons have been killed in the neighbourhood of 
New-York with their crops full of rice, which they 
must have collected in the fields of Georgia and 
Carolina, these districts being the nearest in which 
they could have procured a supply of that kind of 
food. As their power of digestion is so great that 
they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours, 
they must, in that case, have travelled between three 
and four hundred miles in six hours, which shows 
their speed to be, at an average, about one mile in 
a minute. A velocity such as this would enable one 
of these birds, were it so inclined, to visit the Eu- 
ropean continent in less than three days. 
“This great power of flight is seconded by as 
great a power of vision, which enables them, as 
they travel at that swift rate, to inspect the country 
below, discover their food with facility, and thus 
attain the object for which their journey has been 
undertaken. This I have also proved to be the case, 
by having observed them, when passing over a ster- 
ile part of the country, or one scantily’ furnished 
with food suited to them, keep high in the air, fly- 
ing with an extended front, so as to enable them to 
survey hundreds of acres at once. On the contrary, 
when the land is richly covered with food, or the 
trees abundantly hung with mast, they fly low in 
order to discover the part most plentifully supplied. 
Their body is of an elongated oval form, steered by 
a long, well-plumed tail, and propelled by well-set 
wings, the muscles of which are very large and 
powerful for the size of the bird. When an individual 
is seen gliding through the woods, and close to the 
observer, it passes like a thought, and, on trying to 
see it again, the eye searches in vain; the bird is 
gone.” ‘As soon,” he adds, “as the pigeons dis- 
cover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, 
they fly round in circles reviewing the country be- 
