382 LAND-BIRDS AND GAME-BIRDS 



far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast procession 

 extended ; seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to 

 determine how long this appearance would continue, I took out 

 my watch to note the time, and sat down to observe them. It 

 was- then half past one. I sat for more than an hour, but in- 

 stead of a diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed 

 rather to increase both in numbers and rapidity ; and, anxious 

 to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About 

 four o'clock in the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky river, at 

 the town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above 

 my head seemed as numerous and as extensive as ever. Long 

 after this I observed them, in large bodies that continued to 

 pass for six or eight minutes, and these again were followed by 

 other detached bodies, all moving in the same south-east direc- 

 tion till after six in the evening." 



"* * * To form a rough estimate of the daily consumption 

 of one of these immense flocks, let us first attempt to calculate 

 the numbers of that above mentioned as seen in passing between 

 Frankfort and Indiana territory. If we suppose this column 

 to have been a mile in breadth (and I believe it to have been 

 much more) and that it moved at the rate of one mile in a 

 minute ; four hours, the time it continued passing, would make 

 its whole length two hundred and forty miles. Again, suppos- 

 ing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended 

 three Pigeons ; the square yards in the whole space multiplied 

 by three, would give two thousand two hundred and thirty 

 millions, two hundred and seventy-two thousand pigeons ! An 

 almost inconceivable multitude, and yet probably far below the 

 actual amount. Computing each of these to consume half a 

 pint of mast daily, the whole quantity at this rate would equal 

 seventeen millions, four hundred and twenty-four thousand 

 bushels per clay ! Heaven has wisely and graciously given to 

 these birds rapidity of flight arid a disposition to range over 

 vast uncultivated tracts of the earth ; otherwise they must 

 have perished in the districts where they resided, or devoured 

 up the whole productions of agriculture as well as those of the 

 forests. 



