PASSENGER PIGEON. 123 



sport than the above wholesale slaughter, though we had 

 had quan. suff. of pigeon diet. 



During these flights parties carrying lanterns and 

 torches often repair at nightfall to the woods, armed 

 with guns and long poles. The ruddy light cast up 

 into the dark trees reveals thousands of dazzled 

 stupified pigeons, weighing down the branches high 

 and low. In a moment the long poles are rattling 

 among the lower boughs and the guns blazing away 

 at the higher, bringing down the birds by hundreds, 

 fluttering on the ground and showering on the heads of 

 the clamorous crowd that scrambles and scuffles beneath. 



The Passenger Pigeon differs a good deal from the 

 common wild pigeon of Great Britain; its appearance 

 when flying more resembling that of the sparrow-hawk, 

 in the sharp pointed wings and long narrow tail. The 

 plumage is of a somewhat bluish ash colour ; the breast 

 and sides being of a rich chocolate ; the neck and throat 

 tinted with iridescent green and purple. 



Though these flocks, in greater or less number, pass 

 over the country every summer, they are not of course 

 always seen in the same districts. The time of their 

 appearance also varies considerably, depending as it does 

 on the scarcity of food in the regions they have left. 



It is not the case, as stated by Wilson and other 

 naturalists, that the female lays and hatches only a single 



