142 BRITISH BIRDS' EGGS. 



been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still 

 met more the farther I proceeded. The air was literally 

 filled with pigeons ; the light of noonday was obscured as 

 by an eclipse, and the continued buzz of wings had a ten- 

 dency to lull me to repose. 



" Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Har- 

 densburgh fifty-five miles; the pigeons were still passing 

 in undirninished numbers, and continued to do so for three 

 days in succession. The people were all in arms. The 

 banks of the Ohio were crowded with men and boys inces- 

 santly shooting at the pilgrims, which there flew lower as 

 they passed the river. Multitudes were destroyed. For a 

 week or more the population fed on no other flesh than that 

 of pigeons, and talked of nothing bat pigeons/' 



The account given of the roosting-places of these birds 

 by the same writer is not less remarkable. He writes : 

 " One of these carious roosting-places, on the banks of the 

 Green River, in Kentucky, I repeatedly visited. It was, as 

 is always the case, a portion of the forest where the trees 

 are of great magnitude, and where there was little under- 

 wood. I rode through it upwards of forty miles, and found 

 its average breadth to be rather more than three miles. My 

 first view of it was about a fortnight subsequent to the 



