GALLINACE.E. 325 



" A few observations on the mode of flight of 

 these birds must not be omitted. The appearance 

 of large detached bodies of them in the air, and the 

 various evolutions they display, are strikingly pic- 

 turesque and interesting. In descending the Ohio 

 by myself, in the month of February, I often rested 

 on my oars to contemplate their aerial manoeuvres. 

 A column, eight or ten miles in length, would ap- 

 pear from Kentucky, high in air, steering across to 

 Indiana. The leaders of this great body would some- 

 times gradually vary their course, until it formed a 

 large bend, of more than a mile in diameter, those 

 behind tracing the exact route of their predecessors. 

 This would continue sometimes long after both ex- 

 tremities were beyond the reach of sight ; so that the 

 whole, with its glittering undulations, marked a 

 space on the face of the heavens, resembling the 

 windings of a vast and majestic river. When this 

 bend became very great, the birds, as if sensible of 

 the unnecessary circuitous course they were taking, 

 suddenly changed their direction, so that what was a 

 column before became an immense front, straighten- 

 ing all its indentures, until it swept the heavens in 

 one vast and indefinitely-extended line. Other lesser 

 bodies also united with each other as they happened 

 to approach, with such ease and elegance of evolu- 

 tion, forming new figures, and varying these as they 

 united or separated, that I was never tired of contem- 

 plating them. Sometimes a hawk would make a 

 sweep on a particular patrt of the column, from a 

 great height, when, almost as quick as lightning, that 



