140 Flight, fyc. of Pigeons. 



wheat, hemp seed, Indian corn, holly berries, hack berries, whortle 

 berries, and many others, furnish them with abundance at almost all 

 seasons. The acorns of the live oak are also eagerly sought after 

 by these birds, and rice has been frequently found in individuals 

 killed many hundred miles to the northward of the nearest rice 

 plantation. The vast quantity of mast which these multitudes con- 

 sume is a serious loss to the bears, pigs, squirrels and other depen- 

 dents on the fruits of the forest. I have taken from the crop of a 

 single wild pigeon, a good handful of the kernels of beech nuts, in- 

 termixed with acorns and chesnuts. To form a rough estimate of 

 the daily consumption of one of these immense flocks, let us first 

 attempt to calculate the numbers of that above mentioned, as seen 

 in passing between Frankfort and the Indiana territory. If we sup- 

 pose this column to have been one mile in breadth, (and I believe it 

 to have been much more,) and that it moved at the rate of one mile 

 in a minute ; four hours, the time it continued passing, would make 

 its whole length two hundred and forty miles. Again, supposing that 

 each square yard of this moving body comprehended three pigeons ; 

 the square yards in the whole space multiplied by three, would give 

 two thousand two hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and sev- 

 enty two thousand pigeons! An almost inconceivable multitude, and 

 yet probably far below the actual amount. Computing each of these 

 to consume half a pint of mast daily, the whole quantity at this rate 

 would equal seventeen millions, four hundred and twenty four thou- 

 sand bushels per day! Heaven has wisely and graciously given to 

 these birds rapidity of flight and a disposition to range over vast un- 

 cultivated tracts of the earth ; otherwise they must have perished in 

 the districts where they resided, or devoured the whole productions 

 of agriculture as well as those of the forests. 



A few observations on the mode of flight of these birds must not 

 be omitted. The appearance of large detached bodies of them in 

 the air, and the various evolutions they display, are strikingly pic- 

 turesque and interesting. In descending the Ohio by myself in the 

 month of February, I often rested on my oars to contemplate their 

 aerial manoeuvres. A column, eight or ten miles in length, would 

 appear from Kentucky, high in air, steering across to Indiana. The 

 leaders of this great body would sometimes gradually vary their 

 course, until it formed a large bend of more than a mile in diame- 

 ter, those -behind tracing the exact route of their predecessors. 

 This would continue sometimes long after both extremities were be* 



