I50 CASSELL'S BOOK OF lilRDS. 



" Their great power of flight enables them to survey and pass over an astonishing extent of 

 country in a very short time. This is proved by facts well known. Thus, Pigeons have been killed 

 in the neighbourhood of New York with their crops full of rice, which they must have collected in the 

 fields of Georgia and Carolina, these districts being the nearest in which they could possibly have 

 procured a sujjply 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 and four 

 lumdred miles in si.\ hours, which shows their average rate of speed to be at about one mile in a 

 minute. A velocity such as this would enable one of these birds, were it so inclined, 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 dieir journey has been undertaken. This I have also proved to be the 

 case by having observed them, when passing over a sterile district, 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 supplied." 



The innumerable hosts in which the Passenger Pigeon moves, as related by Audubon and 

 Wilson, might seem to be almost fabulous. 



" On my way to Frankfort," says the latter writer, " when about one o'clock, the Pigeons which 

 I had observed the greater part of the morning flying northerly began to return in such immense 

 numbers as I had never before witnessed. Coming to an opening by the side of a creek called the 

 Benson, where I had a more uninterrupted view, I was astonished at their appearance. They were 

 flying with great steadiness and rapidity at a height beyond gunshot, in several strata deep, and so 

 close together that could shot have reached them one discharge could not liave failed of bringing 

 down several individuals. From right to left, as far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast 

 procession extended, seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to determine how long this 

 appearance would continue, I took my watch out to note the time, and sat down to observe them. 

 It was then half-past one. I sat for more than an hour, but instead of any diminution of this 

 prodigious procession, it seemed to increase in numbers and rapidity, and, anxious to reach Frankfort 

 before night, I rose and went on. About four o' clock in the afternoon I crossed the Kentucky 

 River, at the town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above my head seemed as numerous 

 and as extensive as ever. Long after this I observed them in large bodies, that continued to pass for 

 six or eight minutes, and these again were followed by other detached bodies, all moving in the same 

 direction, till after six in the evening. The great breadth of front which this mighty multitude 

 preserved would seem to intimate a corresponding breadth of their breeding-place." 



" In the autumn of 1813," relates Audubon, " 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 Hardensburg, 

 I observed the Pigeons flying from north-east to south-west in greater numbers than I had ever seen 

 them before, and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within 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 that I had undertaken impracticable, 

 as the birds poured on in countless multitudes, I rose, and counting the dots that had been put down, 

 found that one hundred and sixty-three had been made in twenty-one minutes. I travelled on, and 

 still met more the farther I proceeded. The air was literally filled with Pigeons ; the light of noon- 

 day was obscured as" by an eclipse ; the dung fell in spots, not unlike melting flakes of snow, and the 

 continued buz.z of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose. 



