STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 155 



immense numbers. The stories tliat are told 

 respecting the extent of these flocks could not 

 be credited, did they not come from such men 

 as Audubon and Wilson, who would not will- 

 ingly deceive us. Mr. Brewer, the editor of 

 the American edition of Wilson's Ornithology, 

 gives us a detailed account of a flock which he 

 saw in Kentucky some years since. He was 

 near a place where the pigeons, in their jour- 

 neys, were accustomed to roost for the night. 

 It was, he says, in a portion of the forest where 

 the trees were of great size, and where there 

 was but little underwood. "I rode through 

 it," says he, "upward of forty miles, and, cross- 

 ing it at different points, found its average 

 width to be rather more than three miles. 

 Few pigeons were to be seen before sunset; 

 but a great number of persons, with horses and 

 wagons, guns and ammunition, had already 

 made their camps in the vicinity, in expectation 

 of the arrival of the pigeons. Two farmers, 

 living more than a hundred miles distant, had 

 driven upward of three hundred hogs to the 

 place, to be fattened on the slaughtered birds. 

 Here and there, the people employed in salting 

 what had already been captured, were seen sit- 

 ting in the midst of large piles of these birds. 

 Many trees, two feet in diameter, I observed 



