354 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



them to tarry so long beyond their wonted time of prowling. Their 

 very nature seems to have been changed. Their remaining at the 

 pigeon-slaughter till the time of sunrise is a most wonderful circum 

 stance, which demands investigation on the part of naturalists ; for 

 hitherto all these wild beasts which Mr Audubon has introduced 

 into his description, have only been known as animals of nocturnal 

 movements, and of very skulking and suspecting habits. In general, 

 the flash of a gun, the crackling of a flame, or the shout of a hunts- 

 man, will scare any one of them, even when concealed in the lonely 

 retreat ; but, on this ever-memorable occasion, the nerves of the 

 animals, both large and small, were strung up to an astonishing 

 degree of intensity. The day had already dawned, unheeded by 

 them ; and it was only at sunrise that they seemed aware of being 

 in dangerous company, and found that it was high time to sneak off 

 from a place where, Mr Audubon tells us, " there was little under- 

 wood;" where "the uproar continued the whole of the night;" 

 where men had assembled "with iron pots containing sulphur," 

 and "with torches of pine-knots, with poles, and with guns;" where 

 "fires were lighted, and a magnificent as well as wonderful and 

 almost terrifying sight presented itself;" where, in fine, the auditory 

 faculties of Mr Audubon himself became so completely useless, on 

 account of the stunning noise, that absolutely he was " only aware 

 of the firing by seeing the shooters reloading." "O judgment! 

 thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason," if 

 they can bring themselves to believe that into this sulphureous, 

 torch-lighted, detonating, yelling, roaring, and terrific attack on the 

 passenger pigeons, there came up a motley herd of wolves, foxes, 

 cougars, lynxes, bears, raccoons, opossums, and polecats, to share the 

 plunder, and actually tarried there till the rising of the sun ; at which 

 time, Mr Audubon informs us, they were seen sneaking off. He 

 himself saw what he relates. 



But let us pass on. "The pigeons," continues Mr Audubon, 

 "arriving by thousands, alighted everywhere, one above another, 

 until solid masses as large as hogsheads were formed on the branches 

 all around." Solid masses ! Our European pigeons, in a similar 

 situation, would have been all smothered in less than three minutes. 

 Mr Audubon informs us. towards the end of his narrative, that the 



