AVES—PIGEON. 579 
nave travelled between tree and four hundred miles in six hours, making 
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 well-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 Iam 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. 
“Tn the autumn of 1813, I left my house at Henderson, on the banks ot 
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 every flock which passed. 
“Finding, however, that it was next to impossible, and feeling unable ‘o 
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 
Iwent. 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, 1mmense legions still going .by. 
with a front reaching far beyond the Ohio on the west, and the beech-wood 
