380 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 
chief food of the Wild Pigeon. In seasons when these nuts 
are abundant, corresponding multitudes of Pigeons may be 
confidently expected. It sometimes happens that having con- 
sumed the whole produce of the beech trees in an extensive 
district, they discover another at a distance perhaps of sixty 
or eighty miles, to which they regularly repair every morning, 
and return as regularly in the course of the day, or in the 
evening, to their general place of rendezvous, or as it is usually 
called, the roosting place. These roosting places are always in 
the woods, and sometimes occupy a large extent of forest. 
When they have frequented one of these places for some time 
the appearance it exhibits is surprising. The ground is covered 
to the depth of several inches with their dung; all the tender 
grass and underwood destroyed ; the surface strewed with large 
limbs of trees broken down by the weight of the birds cluster- 
ing one above another; and the trees themselves, for thousands 
of acres, killed as completely as if girdled with an axe. The 
marks of this desolation remain for many years on the spot; 
and numerous places could be pointed out where for several 
years after scarce a single vegetable made its appearance.” 
In speaking of their breeding-places, Wilson says: ‘‘ In the 
western countries above mentioned, these are generally in beech 
woods, and often extend in nearly a straight line across the 
country for a great way. Not far from Shelbyville in the state 
of Kentucky, about five years ago, there was one of these 
breeding places, which stretched through the woods in nearly 
a north and south direction; was several miles in breadth, and 
was said to be upwards of forty miles in extent! In this tract 
almost every tree was furnished with nests, wherever the 
branches could accommodate them. The Pigeons made their 
first appearance there about the tenth of April, and left it alto- 
gether, with their young, before the twenty-fifth of May. 
‘‘As soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left 
their nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants, from all parts of 
the adjacent country, came with waggons, axes, beds, cooking 
utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of 
their families, and encamped for several days at this immense 
