THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 80 



had never before been witnessed as in 1829. Flocks 

 extending miles in length, were, for days together, 

 seen p'assing over the hills during the Spring, from 

 the southward; the mighty mass collecting in an 

 encampment in a forest, upwards of nine miles in 



The Passenger, or Migratory Pigeon. 



length, and four in breadth, in which there was 

 scarcely a tree, large or small, which was not loaded 

 with their nests. In those parts of England fre- 

 quented by our common Wood-Pigeons, the well- 

 known rustling and rattling of a host of wings, as a 

 cloud of them rise from some favourite haunt in 

 a wood, will not easily be forgotten; but this clat- 

 tering of flapping pinions, is nothing when com- 

 pared to the uprising of these American flights, 

 which is described as an absolute and constant 

 roaring, so loud and overpowering, that persons on 



