A Paradise of Birds 



Green River, Kentucky, was over three miles 

 wide and forty long/' 



"My first view of it," says the great natural- 

 ist, "was about a fortnight after it had been 

 chosen by the birds, and I arrived there nearly 

 two hours before sunset. Few pigeons were 

 then to be seen, but a great many persons 

 with horses and wagons and armed with guns, 

 long poles, sulphur pots, pine pitch torches, etc., 

 had already established encampments on the 

 borders. Two farmers had driven upwards of 

 three hundred hogs a distance of more than a 

 hundred miles to be fattened on slaughtered 

 pigeons. Here and there the people employed 

 in plucking and salting what had already been 

 secured were sitting in the midst of piles of 

 birds. Dung several inches thick covered the 

 ground. Many trees two feet in diameter were 

 broken off at no great distance from the ground, 

 and the branches of many of the tallest and 

 largest had given way, as if the forest had been 

 swept by a tornado. 



"Not a pigeon had arrived at sundown. Sud- 

 [ 163 1 





