STORIES ABOUT BIRDS. 157 



crash, and falling to tlie ground, destroyed 

 hundreds of the birds beneath, forcing down 

 the dense groups with which every stick was 

 loaded. It was a scene of uproar and confu- 

 sion. I found it quite useless to speak, or even 

 to scream, to those persons who were within 

 a few yards of me. Even the reports of the 

 guns were seldom heard ; and I knew of the 

 firing only by seeing the men reloading their 

 guns. The picking up of the dead and wound- 

 ed was left for the next morning's task. The 

 birds kept constantly coming ; and it was past 

 midnight before I perceived any decrease in the 

 numbers that arrived. The uproar continued, 

 indeed, all night. As I was anxious to know 

 to what distance the sound reached, I sent off a 

 man to travel for the purpose in different direc- 

 tions about the forest. When he returned, he 

 informed me that he heard the noise distinctly 

 when three miles from the spot. Toward the 

 approach of day, the noise rather subsided ; but 

 long before sunrise the pigeons began to move 

 off in a direction quite different from that in 

 which they had arrived the evening before. 

 At sunrise, all that were able to fly had dis- 

 appeared. The bowlings of the wolves now 

 reached our ears ; and the foxes, lynxes, bears, 

 raccoons, and opossums, were seen sneaking off 



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