578 AVES— PIGEON. 



other species known to naturalists, is more calculated to attract the atten- 

 tion of either the citizen or the stranger, as he has opportunity of viewing 

 both of these characteristic habits, while they are passing from north to 

 south, east and west, and, vice versa, over and across the whole extent of 

 the United States of America. 



" The remarkable migrations are owing entirely to the dire necessity of 

 providing food, and not merely to escape the severity of a northern lati- 

 tude, or seek a southern one for the purpose of breeding. They, conse- 

 quently, do not take place at any fixed period or season of the year. Indeed, 

 it happens sometimes that a continuance of a sufficient supply of food in 

 one district will keep these birds absent from another for years. 



" I know, at least, to a certainty, that in Kentucky they remained for 

 several years constantly, and were no where else to be found. They all 

 disappeared one season suddenly when the mast was exhausted, and thus 

 did not return for a long period. The same facts have been observed in 

 other states. 



" Their great power of flight enables them, when in need, to survey and 

 pass over an astonishing extent of country in a very short time. This is 

 proved by facts known to the greater number of observers in America. 

 Pigeons, for example, have been killed in the neighborhood of New York, 

 with their crops still filled with rice, collected by them in the fields of Geor- 

 gia and Carolina, the nearest point at which this supply could possibly have 

 been obtained; and, as it is well ascertained, that owing to their great power 

 of digestion, they will decompose food entirely in twelve hours, they must 



