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VERTEBRATA. AVES. 



The Passenger Pigeon, (C. Migratoria,) of North 

 America, belongs to that division usually denomi- 

 nated Turtles. It is inferior in size to our common 

 Pigeon, and more slender in form ; its elegance is 

 increased by its lengthened and pointed tail, the 

 feathers of which diminish from the middle to the 

 edges. But what is so observable and even un- 

 paralleled in its economy is the immense hosts, the 

 countless millions that assemble together in their 

 astonishing migrations ; undertaken, not as in other 

 tribes, in the search for a more genial clime, but 

 to obtain food, and taking place at uncertain inter- 

 vals of time. " The beech-nut constitutes," says 

 the accurate Wilson, "the chief food of the Wild 

 Pigeon. In seasons when these nuts are abundant, 

 corresponding multitudes of Pigeons may be confi- 

 dently expected. It sometimes happens that, hav- 

 ing consumed the whole produce of the beech-trees 

 in an extensive district, they discover another at the 

 distance perhaps of sixty or eighty miles, to which 

 they regularly repair every morning, and return as 

 regularly in the course of the day or in the evening 

 to their place of general rendezvous, or, as it is 

 usually called, the roosting-place. These roosting- 

 places are always in the woods, and sometimes oc- 

 cupy a large extent of forest. When they have 

 frequented one of these places for some time, the 

 appearance it exhibits is surprising. The ground 

 is covered to the depth of several inches with their 

 dung ; all the tender grass and underwood destroyed, 

 the surface strewed with large limbs of trees, broken 



