346 NATURALIST'S CABINET. 



Singular facts. 



told me, that at one shot, with a blunderbuss,, he 

 killed above a hundred and twenty. 



" I must remark one singular factr that not- 

 withstanding the whole people of a town go out 

 a pigeoning, as they call it, they do not, on some 

 days, kill a single hen bird; arrd on the very 

 next day not a single cock, (and yet both sexes 

 always fly westerly:) and when this is the case, 

 the people are always assured that there will b* 

 a great quantity of them that season." 



When La Hontan was in Canada, these birds 

 were so extremely numerous that the bishop, he 

 says, had been compelled more than once to ex- 

 orcise them formally, on account of the damage 

 they committed. Many of the trees were said 

 to have had more pigeons on them than leaves, 

 in this migration ; and for eighteen or twenty 

 days, it was supposed sufficient might have been 

 killed to supply food for a thousand men. 



A gentleman of the town of Niagara assured 

 Mr. Weld, that once as he was embarking there 

 on board a ship for Toranto, a flight of them was 

 observed coming from that quarter; that as he 

 sailed over the lake Ontario to Toranto, forty 

 miles distant from Niagara, pigeons were seen 

 flying over-head the whole way in a contrary di- 

 rection to that in which the vessel proceeded ; 

 and that on his arriving at the place of his desti-r 

 nation, the birds were still observed coming down 

 from the north in as large bodies as had been no-f 

 ticed at any time during the whole voyage. 



