^ °\?io ^^^] ^- H. Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. 439 



opposite side, so as to raise a bank. Trees of a brittle structure 

 were often broken off by them. 



" We leave our readers to ponder these things without comment 



of ours. 



"The Rev. Mr. Harris, of Massachusetts, in his 'Tour to the 

 State of Ohio,' gives an account equally curious, of the pigeon 

 roosts of that state." 



The "Mr. Harris" of whom Mease speaks is Thaddeus Mason 

 Harris who "Made in the Spring of the Year 1803," "A Tour into 

 the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains." His 

 account ^ of the pigeon roosts follows: "The vast flights of pigeons 

 in this country seem incredible. But there is a large forest in 

 Waterford, containing several hundred acres, which has been 

 killed in consequence of their lighting upon it during the autumn 

 of 1801. Such numbers lodged upon the trees that they broke off 

 large limbs; and the ground below is covered, and in some places a 

 foot thick, with their dung, which has not only killed all the under- 

 growth but all the trees are dead as if they had been girdled. 



"This account which I received from credible persons at Water- 

 ford when I was there, May 13, 1803 is confirmed by a letter 

 written me since my return, by my much-esteemed friend, the 

 Rev. Mr. Story, dated Marietta, June 3, 1803. ' I have visit two 

 pigeon roosts, and have heard of a third. Those I have seen are 

 astonishing. One is supposed to cover one thousand acres: the 

 other is still larger. The destruction of timber and brush on 

 such tracts of land by these small animals is almost incredible. 

 How many millions of them must have assembled to effect it! 

 especially as it was done in the course of a few weeks! A more 

 particular statement will be given this subject in a communication 

 I intend making, agreeably to your request, to the American Acad- 

 emy of Arts and Sciences. 



In 1810 (April 18), John Bradbury, while proceeding to the 

 country around the Naduet River ^ " soon discovered that pigeons 

 were in the woods. I returned and exchanged my rifle for a fowling 



J Mason, Thaddeus Mason. The Journal of A Tour into the Territory North- 

 west of the Alleghany Mountains: Made in the Spring of the Year 1803, etc. 

 Boston, 1805, pp. 179, 180. 



2 Bradbury. John. Travels in the Interior of America in the Years 1809, 1810, 

 1811, etc. Liverpool, 1817, pp. 44, 45. 



