348 Meteorological Journal for the year 1840. 
harvest begun ; 27, chandler apple ripe ; July 2, wheat harvest st 
begun ; 14, Vaccinium frondosum, or whortleberry, ripe, grows on 
the hills, amongst the yellow pine; 15, Rubus villosus, or black- 
berry ripe. 
Columba migratoria.—The forest trees generally, this year 
abounded with fruit, being what is called in the west, ‘a fine 
year for mast.” In such seasons, we are generally visited with 
immense flocks of the Columba migratoria, or wood pigeon. 
This year they appeared about the 15th of September, filling the 
woods with their numbers. One of their “roosts” was selected 
about a mile and a half from Marietta, in the uplands, where the 
timber was a second growth; the trees generally small, and 
many of them mere saplings. From near sunset to an hour af- 
ter, the air was filled with their winged squadrons, and the trees 
and bushes loaded with pigeons, seeking a resting place for the 
night. They found it however, a very unquiet one, for the 
young men and boys visited them every night with torches of 
pine wood, killing them with shot guns, and knocking many 
down with sticks, until they were tired with the sport. After 
about two weeks, the pigeons shifted their nocturnal camping 
ground, either from the disturbance of the hunters, or to a more 
plentiful region for food. The “roost” covered a space of sev- 
eral hundred acres, so that their numbers must have amounted to 
many millions. Between daylight and sunrise, they uniformly 
visited the shore of the Ohio river, for drink, or for small gravel 
stones to assist in digesting. At this period, the vigilant sports: 
man had fine amusement in shooting them on the wing, as they 
rose over the top of the bank where he was standing; killing 
sometimes two or three dozen at a single discharge. Althoug 
this beautiful bird has been subject to the depredation of man for 
more than fifty years in Ohio, in addition to the multitudes that 
annually fall a prey to their feathered enemies, they still exist 
in vast numbers. What then must have been the amount 0 
their winged hosts, as they yearly migrated from the warm re- 
gions of the south, to the cooler districts of the north, as instinct 
and habit directed, before civilization had made any inroads on 
the vast forests which had for ages supplied them with food. 
Marietta, January 5th, 1841. 
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