THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 87 



and inviting, that the wife of the person who shot 

 it, boiled and ate them, as a delicate dish of greens, 

 for supper. The consumption of grains of wheat 

 by a common House-Pigeon, we found to amount to 

 two ounces in twenty-four hours, and in the following 

 twenty-four hours, when fed with peas, it consumed 

 about the same weight. Hence we may easily form 

 some idea of the enormous consumption of a large 

 flight. Supposing one Pigeon to feed regularly at 

 the above rate, its annual average supply would 

 amount to about fifty pounds in weight, a serious 

 consumption of grain when large numbers are con- 

 cerned. The following calculation, made by a very 

 accurate observer, places the subject, as far as relates 

 to the American Wood-pigeons, in a still more 

 striking point of view. He saw a column of Pigeons 

 one mile in breadth, moving at the rate of one mile 

 a minute, which, as it was four hours in passing r 

 made its whole length 240 miles. He then calcu- 

 lated that each square yard of this moving body con- 

 tained three Pigeons, which thus gave two thousand, 

 two hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and 

 seventy-two thousand Pigeons! and yet this he con- 

 sidered to be less than the real number. Computing 

 each of these to consume half a pint of seed daily, 

 the whole quantity would equal seventeen millions, 

 four hundred and twenty-four thousand bushels per 

 day. Heaven, he adds, has wisely and graciously 

 given to these birds rapidity of flight, and a dis- 

 position to range over vast uncultivated tracts of 

 the earth, otherwise they must have perished in the 

 districts where they resided, or devoured the whole 

 productions of agriculture, as well as those of the 

 forests. 



