320 PASSENGER PIGEON. 



must have collected in the fields of Georgia and Carolina, these districts 

 being the nearest in which they could possibly have procured a supply of 

 that kind of food. As their power of digestion is so great that they will 

 decompose food entirely in twelve hours, they must in this case have 

 travelled between three hundred and four hundred miles in six hours, 

 which shews their speed to be at an average about one mile in a minute. 

 I A velocity such as this would enable one of these birds, were it so in- 

 \ clined, to visit the European continent in less than three 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 inspect the country 

 below, discover their food with facility, and thus attain the object for 

 which their journey has been undertaken. This I have also proved to 

 be the case, by having observed them, when passing over a sterile part 

 of the country, or one scantily furnished with food suited to them, keep 

 high in the air, flying with an extended front, so as to enable them to 

 survey hundreds of acres at once. On the contrary, when the land is 

 richly covered with food, or the trees abundantly hung with mast, they 

 fly low, in order to discover the part most plentifully suppUed. 



Their body is of an elongated oval form, steered by a long well- 

 plumed tail, and propelled by well-set wings, the muscles of which are 

 very large and powerful for the size of the bird. When an individual is 

 seen gliding through the woods and close to the observer, it passes Hke a 

 thought, and on trying to see it again, the eye searches in vain ; the bird 

 is gone. 



The mvdtitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing. In- 

 deed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circum- 

 stances, I even now feel inclined to pause, and assure myself that what 

 I am going to relate is fact. Yet I have seen it all, and that too in the 

 company of persons who, like myself, were struck with amazement. 

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

 of the Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens a 

 few miles beyond Hardensburgh, I observed the pigeons flying from 

 north-east to south-west, in greater numbers than I thought I had ever 

 seen them before, and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might 

 pass within the reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself 

 on an eminence, and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for 

 every flock that passed. In a short time finding the task which I had 

 undertaken impracticable, as the birds poured in in countless multitudes. 



