AVES-PIGEON. 579 



have travelled between three and four hundred miles in six hours, mak inj^ 

 their speed at an average about one mile in a minute, and this would enable 

 one of these birds, if so inclined, to visit the European continent, as swal- 

 lows are undoubtedly able to do, in a couple of days. 



" This great power of flight is seconded by as great a power of vision, 

 which enables them, as they travel at that swift rate, to view objects below, 

 to discover their food with facility, and thus put an immediate end to their 

 journey. This I also have proved to be the case, by having observed the 

 pigeons, when passing over a destitute part of the country, keep high in air, 

 and in such an extensive front, as to enable them to survey hundreds of 

 acres at once. But if, on the contrary, the land is richly covered with food, 

 or the trees with mast, they will fly low, in order to discover the portion 

 most plentifully supplied, and upon these they alight progressively. 



"The form of the bodies of these swift travellers is an elongated oval, 

 steered by a long w^ell-plumed tail, furnished with extremely well set and 

 very muscular wings for the size of the individual. If a single bird is seen 

 gliding through the woods and close by, it passes apparently like a thought ; 

 and on trying to see him again, the eye searches in vain — the bird is gone ! 



" Their multitudes in our woods are astonishing ; and, indeed, after hav- 

 ing viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, for years, and, 

 I may add, in many different climates, I even now feel inclined to pause, 

 and assure myself afresh that what I am going to relate is fact. That I 

 have seen it is most certain; and I have seen it all in the company of hun- 

 dreds of other persons looking on, like myself, amazed, and wondering if 

 what we saw was really true. 



"In the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of 

 the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. Having met the pigeons flying from 

 north-east to south-west, in the barrens of natural wastes, a few miles be- 

 yond Hardensburgh, in greater apparent numbers than I thought I had ever 

 seen them before, I felt an inclination to enumerate the flocks that would 

 pass within the reach of my eye in one hour. I dismounted, and, seating 

 myself on a tolerable eminence, took my pencil to mark down what I saw 

 going by and over me, and made a dot for evefy flock which passed. 



" Finding, however, that it was next to impossible, and feeling unable to 

 record the flocks, as they multiplied constantly, I rose, and, counting the 

 dots then put down, discovered that one hundred and sixty-three had been 

 made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and still met more the farther 

 I went. The air was literally filled with pigeons ; the light of noonday 

 became dim, as during an eclipse ; the pigeon's dung fell in spots, not unlike 

 melting flakes of snow; and the continued buzz of their wings over me had 

 a tendency to incline my senses to repose. 



"Whilst waiting for my dinner at Young's inn, at the confluence of Salt 

 river with the Ohio, I saw, at my leisure, immense legions still going by, 

 with a front reaching far beyond the Ohio on the west, and the beech-wood 



