

432 Wright, Early Records of the Passenger Pigeon. [bet. 



so amazingly great, sometimes, that they darken the sky; nor is 

 it uncommon for them to light in such numbers in the larger 

 limbs of mulberry trees and oaks as to break them down. In their 

 travels they make vast havoc amongst the acorns and berries of 

 all sorts, that they waste whole forests in a short time, and leave 

 a famine behind them for most other creatures; and under some 

 trees where they light, it is no strange thing to find the ground 

 covered three inches thick with their dung. These wild pigeons 

 commonly breed in the uninhabited parts of Canada, and as the 

 cold approaches assemble their armies and bend their course 

 southerly, shifting their quarters, like many of the winged kind, 

 according to the season. But the most remarkable thing in their 

 flight, as we are told, is that they never have been observed to 

 return to the northern countries the same way they came from 

 thence, but take quite another route, I suppose for their better 

 subsistence. In these long nights they are very lean, and their 

 flesh is far from being white or tender, though good enough upon 

 the march, when hunger is the sauce, and makes it go down better 

 than truffles and morels would do." 



In 1739 (March 21), John Clayton of Gloucester Co., Va., in 

 a letter writing of 'Virginia Game and Field Sports,' enumerates 

 the best fowls, including ' " wild Pidgeons in prodiguous great 

 flocks, . . . ." Two years later Oldmixon says 2 " There 's great 

 Variety of wild Fowl, as.... Pigeons; "In 1763, Col. James 

 Gordon of Lancaster Co., Va., made these entries in his journal: 3 

 "Jan. 18, 1763. Vast quantities of wild pigeons about; our 

 people killed 60 or 70 of them. Jan. 20 Went out with. . . who 

 killed many wild pigeons." In 'A Topographical Description of 

 the County of Prince George in Virginia,' 1793, John Jones Spooner 

 states: 4 "The woods afford . . . pigeons, . . . . " Thomas Jefferson 

 in his 'Notes on the State of Virginia,' 1825 (written in 1781) 

 gives (p. 99) the Pigeon as a Virginian bird noting only its common 

 and scientific names. In Maryland, Ducatel, in speaking of South 

 Mountain, valley of Middletown), says that 5 " at certain seasons 



i Virginia Magazine, Vol. VII, Oct. 1899, No. 2, p. 173. 



2 Oldmixon, vide supra. Vol. I, p. 445. 



» Williams and Mary Quarterly Hist. Mag., Vol. XII, July 1903, No. 1, p. 1. 



•Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., Vol. Ill, 1794 (reprint, 1810), p. 86. 



6 Trans. Maryland Acad, of Sci. and Lit., Vol. I, Baltimore, 1837, p. 40. 



