A DEPARTURE AT DAYBREAK. 133 



A peculiarity worthy of being mentioned here is, that 

 despite of the terror which they experienced, the pigeons 

 did not abandon the accustomed roosting -place; and 

 that neither the blazing torches, nor the fusillade, nor the 

 shouts, were able to stir them into flight. A man who 

 arrived at our camp in the morning, assured us that he 

 had heard the clang and clamour a quarter of a league 

 before he came upon the scene of action. 



At daybreak the whole army of pigeons sprung into 

 the air to fly in search of their daily food. The noise 

 was then indescribable and truly frightful. It could 

 only be compared to the simultaneous discharge of a 

 battery of cannon. And scarcely was the roosting-ground 

 vacated, before wolves and panthers and foxes and ja- 

 guars, and all the rapacious animals of the American 

 forests, came forward in great numbers to take part in 

 the quarry. At the same time, falcons and buzzards 

 and tawny and gray eagles, to say nothing of crows and 

 screech-owls, hovered above our heads, to carry away a 

 portion of the booty. 



The hunters levied their tithe, and out of this mass of 

 dead and dying selected the plumpest pigeons, with which 

 they loaded their waggons, leaving the young fry to the 

 dogs and pigs of the association. 



As for myself, since I had taken part in the general 

 massacre rather as an amateur than as an interested 

 person, I only carried off a magnificent feather, snatched 

 from the wing of an eagle which I had knocked down on 

 a pile of carcasses. 



Two months after this memorable hunt, of which I 

 have preserved a very lively recollection, I found myself, 



