128 A WONDERFUL FLIGHT. 



the course of an hour. Accordingly, I seated myself 

 tranquilly ; and drawing from my pocket pencil and 

 paper, I began to take my notes. In a short time the 

 fiocks succeeded each other with so much rapidity that the 

 only way I could count them was by tracing manifold 

 strokes. In the space of thirty-five minutes, two hundred 

 and twenty bands of pigeons had passed before my eyes. 

 Soon the flocks touched each other, and were arrayed in 

 so compact a manner that they hid from my sight the 

 sun. The ordure of these birds covered the ground, fall- 

 ing thick and fast like winter's snow. 



On returning at noon to the inn at Hartford for din- 

 ner, I had leisure to examine the continuation of this 

 truly miraculous flight. The pigeons did not halt in the 

 surrounding plains ; for the nuts and acorns had every- 

 where failed that year. I had, therefore, no chance of 

 burning powder among their serried files, which kept 

 out of the range of the best rifle. From time to time, 

 as a merlin or a gray eagle pounced upon their rear- 

 guard, a compact mass was formed, which, like to a ser- 

 pent, wreathed in a thousand folds, to avoid the attacks 

 of the bird of prey ; then, the danger escaped, or somo 

 poor victim carried off, the column resumed its rapid 

 progress through the transparent azure. 



During the three days of my stay at Hartford, the 

 population never laid aside their weapons. All men 

 and children had a double-barrelled gun or a rifle in their 

 hands ; and ambushed in a wood, behind a rock, or on 

 the banks of a river, wherever a sufficient covert could 

 be obtained, they waited a favourable moment to test 

 their skill and thin the immense body above their heads. 

 In the evening the conversation of everybody turned 



