276 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



industry is in jeopardy, when visited by such a voracious 

 multitude of pilferers, who, like the locusts of Egypt, desolate 

 whole tracts of country by their unsparing ravages. 



TABLE XVII. (See page 17.) 

 OBDER 4. GALLINACEOUS (or Poultry tribe). 



WE now come to one of the most useful divisions of birds, 

 forming in their domesticated state no inconsiderable source 

 of profit to those who rear them for the purpose of sale. In 

 the tables of classification, the Order comprises three tribes: 

 1st, Pigeons ; 2nd, Fowls, or common Poultry ; and 3rd, 

 the short- winged families of Ostriches, Cassowaries, &c., 

 which by others have been classed amongst the Waders, in 

 consequence of their length of legs. 



In this country, where Pigeons are, generally speaking, 

 a domestic bird, few persons have an idea of their countless 

 increase and abundance, when left to themselves, roaming 

 over wide tracts, and following, almost without interruption, 

 their natural habits. Even in our dovecots, however, their 

 increase is often prodigious ; it having been found that, in 

 the course of four years, nearly 15,000 have been produced 

 from a single pair. Bearing this in mind, the reader will be 

 better prepared to credit the startling accounts of the myriads 

 of these birds, so often witnessed in North America, con- 

 sisting of a particular species called the Passenger, or 

 Migratory Pigeon, from their regular visits to certain 

 districts, either for the purpose of feeding or rearing their 

 young. And though tens of thousands are destroyed, chiefly 

 at their roosting-places, the numbers seem rather to increase 

 than diminish. Such multitudes had never before been 

 witnessed as in 1829. Flocks, extending miles in length, 

 were, for days together, seen passing over the hills during 

 the Spring, from the southward ; the mighty mass collecting 



