124 TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASSICS 



excepting in those parts of the country in which it has not 

 been known to remain during the winter. Even in these 

 movements it is largely influenced by instinctive consid- 

 erations of food. Evidently the temperature has but little 

 to do with their migrations, as they not unfrequently move 

 northward in large columns as early as the 7th of March, 

 with a thermometer twenty degrees below the freezing 

 point. In the spring of 1872 a large accumulation of these 

 birds took place early in March, in the eastern portion of 

 New York. They were present in the forests about Al- 

 bany, and were taken in such immense numbers that the 

 markets of New York and Boston were largely supplied 

 with them. 



"As early as the 10th of March they were ascertained 

 to have in their ovaries full grown eggs ready for exclu- 

 sion. In Kentucky they have been known, according to 

 Audubou, to remain summer and winter in the same dis- 

 trict for several successive years, in consequence of great 

 abundance of food, while in other parts of the State none 

 were to be met with. They suddenly disappeared as soon 

 as the beechmast had become exhausted, and did not re- 

 turn for a long period. 



" The Wild Pigeons are capable of propelling themselves 

 in long-continued flights, and are known to move with an 

 almost incredible rapidity, passing over a g ea: < xr n 

 country in a very short time. It is quite a common and 

 well-ascertained fact that Pigeons are captured in the State 

 of New York with their crops still filled with the undi- 

 gested grains of rice that must have been taken in the 

 distant fields of Georgia or South Carolina, apparently 

 proving that they much have passed over the intervening 



