468 ~ GAME BIRDS, WILD-FOWL AND SHORE BIRDS. 



They nested as far south at least as Pennsylvania, Tennessee 

 and Kentucky, but usually most of them bred in the north. 



The accounts of the early settlers in Massachusetts show 

 that there was a northward migration of Pigeons through New 

 England in March, and they sometimes lingered about Hudson 

 Bay until December, feeding on the berries of the juniper. 

 The roosts of the Pigeons were so extensive and the birds fre- 

 quenting them were so numerous that it was necessary for 

 them to fly long distances daily in order to secure food enough 

 for their wants. In migration their flight was very high and 

 swift. Audubon estimates that they flew a mile a minute, 

 and others have asserted that they sometimes travelled one 

 hundred miles an hour. This was probably an exaggeration. 



I remember standing, as a boy, on the shore of an arm of 

 Lake Quinsigamond, when a small flock of Pigeons, crossing 

 the water, made directly for me. I never had killed a Pigeon, 

 and intended to secure a specimen; but the flock, in its arrow- 

 like flight, descending directly toward me, passed over my 

 head with inconceivable velocity, and reached the woods 

 behind me before the gun could be brought to bear. 



In searching for food in a country where it was plentiful, 

 the birds flew low, and, upon reaching good feeding ground, 

 swung in large circles while examining the place. Some flocks 

 were composed of young birds, others were mostly males, and 

 still others almost entirely females. 



Their roosting places were preferably in large and heavy 

 timber, sometimes in swamps. In most of the larger roosts, 

 the trees, undergrowth and all vegetation on the ground were 

 soon killed by a heavy deposit of guano. About sunset the 

 Pigeons in all the country for many miles around began to 

 move toward the roost, and soon after sundown they com- 

 menced to arrive in immense numbers, some from a distance 

 of one hundred miles or more. Birds poured in from all 

 directions until after midnight, and left the roost again at 

 sunrise. 



Audubon says that a messenger whom he sent out from a 

 Pigeon roost reported to him that the uproar of the birds 

 arriving could be heard three miles away. A most remarkable 



