230 FACULTIES OF BIRDS. 



extent of country in a very short time. This is 

 proved by facts well known in America. Thus, pi- 

 geons have been killed in the neighbourhood of 

 New-York with their crops full of rice, which they 

 must have collected in the fields of Georgia and 

 Carolina, these districts being the nearest in which 

 they could have procured a supply of that kind of 

 food. As their power of digestion is so great that 

 they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours, 

 they must, in that case, have. travelled between three 

 and four hundred miles in six hours, which shows 

 their speed to be, at an average, about one mile in 

 a minute. A velocity such as this would enable one 

 of these birds, were it so inclined, to visit the Eu- 

 ropean continent in less than three days. 



"This great power of flight is seconded by as 

 great a power of vision, which enables them, as 

 they travel at that swift rate, to inspect the country 

 below, discover their food with facility, and thus 

 attain the object for which their journey has been 

 undertaken. This I have also proved to be the case, 

 by having observed them, when passing over a ster- 

 ile part of the country, or one scantily furnished 

 with food suited to them, keep high in the air, fly- 

 ing with an extended front, so as to enable them to 

 survey hundreds of acres at once. On the contrary, 

 when the land is richly covered with food, or the 

 trees abundantly hung with mast, they fly low in 

 order to discover the part most plentifully supplied. 

 Their body is of an elongated oval form, steered by 

 a long, well-plumed tail, and propelled by well-set 

 wings, the muscles of which are very large and 

 powerful for the size of the bird. When an individual 

 is seen gliding through the woods, and close to the 

 observer, it passes like a thought, and, on trying to 

 see it again, the eye searches in vain ; the bird is 

 gone." " As soon," he adds, " as the pigeons dis- 

 cover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, 

 they fly round in circles reviewing the country be- 



