1858. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



5G3 



For the New England ^Farmer. 



OKNITHOLOGY. 

 BT S. P. FOWLER. 



The Passenger Pigeon [Colutnba migratoria) 

 is, on some accounts, one of our most interesting 

 birds. Our attention to the bird is not excited 

 by its pleasant and charming note, for it has 

 none; nor for its familiar and confiding habits, 

 evinced by its rearing its young in our orchards 

 and gardens ; it being an inhabitant of our woods 

 and but little dependent on our cultivated fruits 

 and grains for its support ; as it is in the forest, 

 that it rears its young, and obtains its principal 

 food. It is its gregarious habits principally that 

 make it so interesting to an ornithologist, there 

 being no bird like it in this wide world, in this 

 particular. Indeed, there is nothing like this gre- 

 garious propensity, as seen in our wild pigeon, 

 in all animated nature, if we except the vast 

 shoals of fish that sometimes visit our bays and 

 rivers. The bird possesses beauty and symmetry, 

 particularly the male, in his second year, dressed 

 in his nuptial suit, glowing in metallic lustre. 

 His robust and compact form of body is just 

 suited to give room for those powerful muscles 

 to play, and move those long and sweeping wings, 

 that require, in order to control them, a long 

 stretching oar, in the shape of twelve sharp-point- 

 ed, long-tail feathers. These wings possess power 

 enough to force the bird through the air, at the 

 rate of a mile a minute, its estimated usual speed. 

 The use it sometimes makes of its wings in beat- 

 ing the mast or beech nuts from trees, to obtain 

 food, discovers to us their power and strength ; 

 none but the strongest pinions could long with- 

 stand this rough usage. When on the wing, 

 the wild pigeon never flags or soars, but presses 

 onward in a rapid flight, John Gilpin like, intent 

 on accomplishing its journey in the quickest time. 

 In fact, in point of speed, we may regard the pas- 

 senger pigeon a perfect clipper amongst our 

 birds. 



To the eye of an ornithologist, it also presents, 

 by its admirable steering apparatus, its great 

 ability to perform evolutions difficult to most 

 birds. This is seen when the bird is passing over 

 the country, in its most rapid flight, and fancying 

 it discovers food in the fields below, by a short 

 curve it sweeps to the earth, and when within a 

 few feet of it, checks its speed by short down- 

 ward strokes of its wings. But should it not 

 alight, being deceived in its expectation of food, 

 or apprehensive of danger, it alters its downward 

 course, and gracefully, by describing a circle, rises 

 again into the air, and pursues its journey. 

 Where other evolutions are performed by the 

 pursuit of birds of prey, each individual bird 

 composing the flock, doing the same thing at the 

 same time, the efl'ect produced upon the behold- 

 er is the same as upon viev/ing the rapid ma- 

 noeuvres of companies of dragoons. The nidifi- 

 cation of the passenger pigeon has been the oc- 

 casion of controversies amongst ornithologists. 

 Wilson says thej' have only one young at a time, 

 and breed three or four times in a season. Audu- 

 bon says their eggs are two in number, and it is 

 a remarkable fact, that each brood generally con- 

 sists of a male and female. 



Giraud, in his "Birds of Long Island," says, "I 

 have heard frequent controversies relative to the 



number of eggs deposited by the wild pigeon. I 

 can assure those who are of opinion tliat it lays 

 but one egg, that the number is two, though gen- 

 erally but one young bird is found in the nest." 

 This is accounted for by the inequality of the 

 hatching, one usually precedes the other a few 

 days, and the remaining e^^, or young, as soon 

 as it appears, is thrown from the nest by the first 

 comer. The only nest of this bird we ever dis- 

 covered in Danvers, was built upon a lofty white 

 oak, and contained two white eggs. Its archi- 

 tecture was rude and of the true platform style, 

 a few dry sticks carelessly placed together, and 

 through this loose scaflTokling, with the aid of a 

 glass, the eggs could be seen from below. Have 

 the readers of the N. E. Farmer observed the 

 eggs or young of the wild pigeon ? But it is its 

 gregarious habits, as we have before said, that 

 are peculiar, and have been noticed by many 

 naturalists and travelers, but by none more close- 

 ly than by Mr. Audubon, whose account of the 

 bird is very full and remarkable. 



Mr. Charles Waterton, an English ornitholo- 

 gist, is very severe upon portions of Audubon's 

 account of the passenger pigeon, in what he says 

 he saw of the assembling together of astonishing 

 numbers of these birds in Kentucky. The excep- 

 tions made by Mr. Waterton, are to Audubon's 

 account of the assemblage of foxes, lynxes, cou- 

 gars, bears, raccoons, opossums and pole-cats, 

 to feast upon the pigeons congregated together, 

 of the many trees he observed, which were brok- 

 en oft' at no great distance from the ground by 

 the weight of these birds on their tops, of their 

 arriving by thousands, and alighting everywhere, 

 one above another, until solid masses as large as 

 hogsheads were formed on the branches all 

 around. To this, in a querulous way, Waterton 

 says, "I now leave the assemblage of wild beasts, 

 the solid masses of pigeons, as large as hogsheads, 

 and the broken trunk of the tree two feet in di- 

 ameter, to the consideration of those British nat- 

 uralists, who have volunteered to support a for- 

 eigner, in his exertions to teach Mr. Bull orni- 

 thology in the nineteenth century. And by the 

 way," continues Mr. Waterton, "at the end of 

 Mr. Audubon's 'Biography of Birds,' I observe a 

 most laudatory notice by Mr. Sv/ainson. He tells 

 us that Audubon contemplated nature as she 

 really is, not as she is represented in books ; he 

 sought her in her sanctuary. Well, be it so ; I 

 do not dispute his word; still, I suspect, that 

 during the search and contemplation, either the 

 dame herself was in liquor, or her wooer in hallu- 

 cination." 



Now we believe that all Mr. Audubon says he 

 himself saw of the wild pigeons, on the banks of 

 the Green river in Kentucky, is true, notwith- 

 standing what European naturalists may say to 

 the contrary. They must not judge of the habits 

 of our fast, gallant and truly American bird, with 

 half a continent like ours to range in, and which 

 possesses such powers of flight, that in twenty 

 hours, every pigeon in the Union could meet to- 

 gether in one great mass meeting, with the gen- 

 tle, quiet, short-winged doves of Europe. I see 

 Kalm, in his travels, notices the breaking and fall- 

 ing of trees, in a partial state of decay, by the 

 weight of pigeons on there tops. Such may have 

 been the condition of the trees broken, and no- 

 ticed by Audubon. When old and bare of leaves, 



