PASSENGER TURTLE. 181 



and young squab pigeons, which had been precipi- 

 tated from above, and on which herds of hogs were 

 fattening. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles, were sail- 

 ing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs 

 from the nests at pleasure ; while, from twenty feet 

 upwards to the top of the trees, the view through 

 the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding 

 and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings 

 roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash 

 of falling timber ; for now the axemen were at work, 

 cutting down those trees that seemed to be most 

 crowded with nests, and contrived to fell them in 

 such a manner, that, in their descent, they might 

 bring down several others > by which means, the fall- 

 ing of one large tree sometimes produced 200 squabs, 

 little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one 

 heap of fat. On some single trees, upwards of a hun- 

 dred nests were found, each containing one squab 

 only ; a circumstance, in the history of this bird, not 

 generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to 

 walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from 

 the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by 

 the weight of the multitudes above, and which, in 

 their descent, often destroyed numbers of the birds 

 themselves ; while the clothes of those engaged in 

 traversing the woods were completly covered with 

 the excrements of the pigeons. These circumstances 

 were related to me by many of the most respectable 

 part of the community in that quarter ; and were 

 confirmed, in part, by what I myself witnessed. I 



