216 THE GREAT NORTH-WEST 



or sparrows, ever multiplied so fast as these pigeons used 

 to do. Certainly no bird ever assembled in such vast 

 multitudes. A relative of mine, a retired naval captain, 

 who settled in Ohio, has left it on record that in the year 

 1835 he saw a flock of these pigeons which was at least 

 thirty miles long by four or five broad. No total eclipse 

 of the sun that the captain had ever witnessed threw a 

 deeper shadow on the earth. Daylight could not be seen 

 through the flock anywhere except near its margin ; the 

 birds therefore must have been flying hundreds thick, 

 one above the other. A very little calculation will show 

 that the numbers of such a flock could only be estimated 

 by hundreds of millions. Again in later years, 1837-38—39, 

 and in 1843-48, the captain has left it on record that he 

 saw immense numbers of pigeons, but remarks that each 

 year the flocks were smaller, and accounts for that fact 

 by saying that the wanton slaughter of the old and young 

 birds was the cause. 



The descriptions of the breeding-places of the passen- 

 ger-pigeons given in modern books, and of those which I 

 myself saw, can give no idea of what they were in former 

 days. Many writers affirm that the great branches of the 

 trees were broken down so extensively as to cause the 

 death of hundreds of square miles of forest. Wilson says 

 that the dung alone of the birds had this effect ; but that 

 is an assertion that I cannot credit. Now, the nests are 

 scattered about a certain area of forest, generally two or 

 three per tree, with here and there a tree containing a 

 dozen or more. Formerly the trees were crowded with 

 nests, inasmuch that it paid to fell the trees to obtain the 

 young birds. Those that were old enough to be eaten 

 were put in sacks, the younger were wantonly thrown to 

 the pigs. The old birds were slaughtered in a different 

 way. Of that presently. 



The mast, or beech nuts, lying on the ground, under 

 the snow, all the winter, is in a swollen condition, ready 

 to burst into shoot early in the spring — that is, generally 



