272 



THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



to credit the startling accounts of the myriads of these birds, 

 so often witnessed in North America, consisting of a particular 

 species called the Passenger or Migratory Pigeon, from their 

 regular visits to certain districts, either for the purpose of 

 feeding or rearing their young. And though tens of thousands 

 are destroyed, chiefly at their roosting-places, the numbers 

 seem rather to increase than diminish. 



It has been said, that they only lay one egg at a time ; but 

 this is not strictly true, many of them laying two. But even 



Tho Passenger or Migratory Pigeon. 



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 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 



