298 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



But even at this rate, it would be difficult to account for 

 their vast numbers, without the further knowledge of 

 their prolific nature, and the rapid growth of the young 

 birds. Their sittings are renewed, or rather continued ; 

 one" pair having been thus known to produce seven, and 

 another, eight times in one year. In twenty-three days 

 from the laying of the egg, the young ones could fly, 

 being completely feathered on the eighth day. When 

 the broods are matured, with the exception of, probably, 

 some tons of the young, which are killed, and carried off 

 by actual waggon-loads, being more esteemed for food 

 than the old ones, they continue their course towards- 

 the north ; from whence, in December, they return in 

 the same dense mass, and are usually found to be remark- 

 ably fat ; proving, that in the northern regions they find 

 an ample supply of food ; and vast, indeed, must be the 

 stock, to furnish and fatten such a swarm of hungry 

 mouths. In the crop of one of our common English 

 Wood-Pigeons, just killed, we found upwards of an ounce 

 of the fresh-budding leaves of clover, and in another., 

 mentioned by Mr. White, of Selborne, was found an 

 equal quantity of tender turnip-tops, so nice and inviting, 

 that the wife of the person who shot it, boiled and ate 

 them, as a delicate dish of greens, for supper. The 

 consumption of grains of wheat by a common House- 

 Pigeon, we found to amount to two ounces in twenty- 

 four hours, and in the following twenty-four hours, when 

 fed with peas, it consumed about the same weight. Hence 

 we may easily form some idea of the enormous consump- 

 tion of a large flight. Supposing one Pigeon to feed 

 regularly at the above rate, its annual average supply 

 would amount to about fifty pounds in weight, a serious 

 consumption of grain when large numbers are concerned. 

 The following calculation, made by a very accurate ob- 

 server, places the subject, as far as relates to the Ameri- 

 can Wood-Pigeons, in a still more striking point of view. 

 He saw a column of Pigeons one mile in breadth, mov- 

 ing at the rate of one mile a minute, which, as it was 



