V ° L f<m in ] Kalm, Wild Pigeons in North America. 59 



winter haunts, thus covering the ground and making it impossible 

 for them to secure the acorns, beech-nuts and other fruit and 

 seeds on which they otherwise feed at this season: in such cases 

 they are forced to leave these localities and seek their food down 

 along the sea coast where the winters, owing to the sea air, are 

 always milder, and the ground more and earlier free from snow. 

 Experience has shown that both of these circumstances have 

 caused their migrations to take place in such great multitudes. 



A peculiar fact and one which older persons have unanimously 

 maintained to be true, is that on all occasions which they could 

 remember, when the Pigeons appeared in such great numbers, 

 there had always been during the preceding autumn, in Pennsyl- 

 vania and adjacent localities, an abundant crop of acorns and 

 other arboreal seeds, excelling that of several previous years; 

 but during their stay the Pigeons had so carefully searched and 

 ransacked all possible nooks and corners that after their departure 

 it was almost impossible to find a single acorn in the woods. 



Several extremely aged men also declared that during then 

 childhood there were, in summertime, many more of the Pigeons 

 in New Sweden than there are now ; the cause of this is that the 

 country is at present much more populous and cultivated and the 

 woods more cleared off, and as a result the Pigeons have either 

 been killed off or scared away. 



As nearly all the inhabitants of Pennsylvania and the English 

 settlements in the South did not quite know whence these number- 

 less swarms of Pigeons came from, they entreated me to ascertain, 

 during my journeys in the interior of the country, where so many 

 were to be found in summertime, what their food and other eco- 

 nomic requirements were at that time of the year, and so on. 

 During my journey to and within Canada I found the desired 

 occasion of learning all of this, which I will now briefly relate. 



When toward the end of June, 1749 (new style), I had left the 

 English Colonies, and set out for Canada through the wilderness 

 which separates the English and French Colonies from each other, 

 and which to a great extent consists of thick and lofty forests, 

 I had an opportunity of seeing these Pigeons in countless numbers. 

 Their young had at this time left their nests, and their great 

 numbers darkened the sky when they occasionally arose en masse 



