92 



THE OOLOGIST. 



desperate effort. He reached Louis- 

 ville in the night having been detained 

 upon his way by a vain pursuit of Wild 

 Turkeys, until it was so late that he 

 was alarmed in the evening by hearing 

 the distant sound of rapids sometime 

 before he reached the city. He reached 

 Bear Grass Creek; landed in safety; 

 took his luggage on his shoulder, and 

 groped his way in the dark to the town. 

 From here he writes: "The next clay I 

 sold my skiff for exactly half what it 

 cost me; and the man who bought it 

 wondered why I gave it such a droll In- 

 dian name(The Ornithologist) 'some old 

 chief or warrior, I suppose,' said he." 



Leaving his baggage to be forwarded 

 by wagon he proceeded on foot to Lex- 

 ington, a distance of seventy-two miles. 

 The walking was uncomfortable and 

 the absence of bridges very inconven- 

 ient; however he was generally pleased 

 with the appearance of the country. 

 He was most profoundly interested in 

 the flight of the Passenger Pigeons. 

 They moved in immense clouds several 

 strata in depth, extending in every di- 

 rection as far as the eye could reach. 

 He sat clown to note how long this 

 flight would continue; but after an hour 

 there was no signs of the end, in fact 

 they appeared to be crowding on in 

 greater numbers. He visited one of 

 these remarkable Pigeon roosts, exper- 

 iencing much inconvenience in reach- 

 ing it. The inhabitants of the vicinity 

 assemble there in great numbers at 

 night to kill the birds which is done by 

 every manner of device. At certain 

 seasons of the year wagon loads of 

 slaughtered birds are daily taken from 

 the roosting grounds to feed the hogs 

 on, which it is said is a very fattening 

 diet. 



Arriving at Lexington our traveler 

 was most surprisingly delighted with 

 the gay appearance of the city. For 

 many long weeks he had pursued his 

 way through the solitude of an almost 

 unbroken forest, and now to emerge 



from the solitary forest into the busy 

 streets of this Kentucky city was exhil- 

 erating to the fatigued senses of the pil- 

 grim. Every where there was a no- 

 table spirit of industry. Eveiybody was 

 interested in buying and selling land. 

 The spirit of trade pervaded every 

 avenue of business. Especially was 

 this true of the Yankees, who, he affirms 

 we reall traders. One particularly en- 

 terprising Yankee — a house carpenter 

 from Massachusetts had brought down 

 the river from Pennsylvania several 

 barrels of apples and employed the 

 negro women "to hawk them about the 

 streets, at thirty-seven and a half cents 

 per dozen." 



A Kentucky horse in that day was as 

 remarkable as now, although in a dif- 

 ferent sense. He says they are the 

 hardiest in the world, not so much by 

 nature, as by education and habit. For 

 from the very beginning of their exis- 

 tence they are habituated to every ex- 

 treme of starvation and gluttony, idle- 

 ness and excessive fatigue. In sum- . 

 mer they have the best of the land, but 

 in winter when the fields are bare they 

 become the very skeleton of life. In 

 this condition they are ridden into 

 town, a distance of twenty miles or so, 

 through roads and sloughs, that would 

 become the graves of any common ani- 

 mal, with a fury and celerity incom- 

 prehensible by any one save an inhab- 

 itant. Wilson was greatly sm*prised to 

 see what a vast amount of industry and 

 improvement had been gathered there 

 in a few years, and Lexington with all 

 its faults is yet an honorable monument 

 of the enterprise of its citizens. 



From Lexington he proceeded to 

 Nashville; and here let us close this 

 paper reserving for the next the re- 

 mainder of his southern experience. 



Mr. C. C. Henry of New York City 

 writes "I enjoyed the Oologist during 

 the past year ynore than any paper or 

 magazine I have ever taken." 



