216 HisTOUY or 



To this short list might be added a long catalogue of foreign 

 pigeons, of which we know little more than the plumage and the 

 names. Indeed, the variety of their plumage is as beautiful, as 

 the names by which they are known are harsh and dissonant. 



per day! Heaven has wisely and graciously ffiven to these birds rapidify 

 )(■ flight and a disposition to range over vast uncultivated tracts of the earth, 

 otherwise they must have perished in the districts where they resided, or 

 devoiu-ed up the whole productions of agriculture, as well as those of the 

 forests. 



" A few observations on the mode of flight of these birds must not he 

 omitted. The appearance of large detached bodies of them in the air, and 

 the various evolutions they display, are strikingly picturesque and interest- 

 ing. 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 appear from Kentucky, high in air, steering 

 across to Indiana. The leaders of this great body would sometimes gra- 

 dually 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 extremities were beyond 

 the reach of sight ; so that the whole, with its glittery 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 sensi- 

 ble of the unnecessary circuitovis course they were taking, suddenly changed 

 their direction, so that what was in column before became an immense 

 front, straightening all its indentures, until it swept the heavens in one 

 vast and infinitely 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 contemplating them. Sometimes a hawk would 

 make a sweep on a particular part of the column, from a g^reat height, 

 when, almost as quick as lightening, that part shot downwards out of the 

 common track ; but, soon rising again, continued advancing at the same 

 height as before. This inflection was continued by those behind, who, on 

 arriving at this point dived dowm, almost perpendicularly, to a great depth, 

 and rising, followed tlie exact path of those that went before. As these 

 vast bodies passed over the river near me, the surface of the water, whicl 

 rt'as before smooth as glass, appeared marked with innumerable dimples, 

 occasioned by the dropping of their dung, resembling the commencement of 

 a shower of large drops of rain or haiL 



" The nest of the wild pigeon is formed of a few dry slender twigs, ciire- 

 Icssly put together, and with so little concavity, that the young one, when 

 half grown, can easily be seen from below. The eggs are pure white. 

 Great niunbers of hawks, and sometimes the bald eagle himself, liover about 

 those breeding places, and seize the old or the young from the nest amidst 

 the rising multitudes, and with the most daring effrontery. The young, 

 A'hon beginning to fly, confine themselves to the under part of the tall woods 

 .vhere there is no brush, and where uuts 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. Vast numbers ol 



