GALLINACE.E. 327 



above, and on which herds of hogs were fattening. 

 Hawks, Buzzards, and Eagles, were sailing about in 

 great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their 

 nests at pleasure ; while, from twenty feet upwards, 

 to the tops of the trees, the view through the woods 

 presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and flut- 

 tering multitudes of Pigeons, their wings roaring like 

 thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling 

 timber ; for now the axe-men were at work, cutting 

 down those trees that seemed to be most crowded 

 with nests, and contrived to fell them in such a man- 

 ner, that in their descent they might bring down se- 

 veral others ; by which means the falling of one large, 

 tree sometimes produced two hundred squabs, little 

 inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one mass 

 of fat. On some single trees upwards of one hun- 

 dred nests were found, each containing one young 

 only. It was dangerous to walk under these flying 

 and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of 

 large branches, broken down by the weight of the 

 multitudes above, and which in their descent often 

 destroyed numbers of the birds themselves; while 

 the clothes of those engaged in traversing the woods 

 were completely covered with the excrements of the 

 Pigeons. 



" The young, when beginning to fly, confine 

 themselves to the underpart of the tall woods, where 

 there is no brush, and where nuts and acorns are 

 abundant, searching among the leaves for mast ; and 

 appear like a prodigious torrent rolling along through 

 the woods, every one striving to be in the front. A 



