CHAPTER IX. 



THE PASSENGER-PIGEONS. 



|JNE autumn morning of 1847, before day, I was 

 wandering along the heights which overhang 

 the town of Hartford, in Kentucky, driving 

 before me the robins, mavises, and rice-birds, 

 when all at once, on emerging from the wood, I observed 

 that the horizon was darkling ; and, after having atten- 

 tively examined what could have caused so sudden a 

 change in the atmosphere, I discovered that the clouds 

 as I had supposed them to be were neither more nor less 

 than numerous enormous flocks of pigeons.* These birds 



* The passenger-pigeon of North America belongs to a peculiar species, 

 which is found in all the northern states of the great republic, as well as in 

 Upper and Lower Canada. Numbers of these birds pass the winter as low as 

 the 60th degree of latitude, and live upon worms and the berries of junipers 

 and thorns. Their beauty of plumage is truly remarkable ; it is a dazzling 



