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, conze 
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 u 
one district will keep these birds absent from another for years. 
“T know, at least, toa 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 along 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 ina 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 
