Passenger Pigeon. As the forests have been cut away these birds have gradually diminished in numbers, 

 until in Central Ohio, a section where formerly the most numerous, they are seldom seen. I have within my 

 easy recollection seen the sky darkened by them during their morning flights to their feeding grounds, and 

 have seen several thousands taken in a single day in a spring-net. But at the present writing, the words 

 occasional visitor and possibly summer resident, describe their numerical position in the bird-list of the 

 State. 



In contrast with these few words I shall quote from Audubon. He writes as follows, page 320, 

 "American Ornithological Biography": "The multitude of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing. 

 Indeed, after having viewed them so often, and under so many circumstances, 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 Harciensburg, I observed the Pigeons flyin°- 

 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 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, I rose, and counting the dots then put down, found that 163 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 buzz of wings had a tendency to lull my senses to repose. . . . 

 "Before sunset I reached Louisville, distant from Harciensburg fifty-five miles. The Pigeons were 

 still passing in undiminished numbers, and continued to do so for three days in succession. The people 

 were all in arms. The banks of the Ohio were crowded with men and boys, incessantly shooting at the 

 pilgrims, which there flew lower as they passed the river. Multitudes were thus destroyed. For a week 

 or more, the population fed on no other flesh than that of Pigeons, and talked of nothing but Pigeons. 

 The atmosphere, during this time, was strongly impregnated with the peculiar odor which emanates 

 from the species. . . 



"Let us now inspect their place of nightly rendezvous. One of these curious roosting-places, on the 

 banks of the Green River in Kentucky, I repeatedly visited. It was, as is always the case, in a portion 

 of the forest, where the trees were of great magnitude, and where there was little underwood. I rode 

 through it upward of forty miles, and crossing it in different parts, found its average breadth to be more 

 than three miles. . . . The dung lay several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the roosting- 

 place, like a bed of snow. Many trees two feet in diameter, I observed, were broken off at no great 

 distance from the ground; and the branches of many of the largest and tallest had given way, as if the 

 forest had been swept by a tornado. Every thing proved to me that the number of birds resorting to this 

 part of the forest must be immense beyond conception. . . . 



"The breeding of the Wild Pigeons, and the places chosen for that purpose, are points of great 

 interest. The time is not much influenced by season, and the place selected is where food is most plentiful 

 and most attainable, and always at a convenient distance from water. Forest-trees of great height are 

 those in which the Pigeons form their nest. Thither the countless myriads resort and prepare to fulfil 

 one of the great laws of nature. . . , . On the same tree from fifty to a hundred nests may frequently 

 be seen: — I might say a much greater number, were I not anxious, kind reader, that however wonderful 

 my account of the Wild Pigeon is, you may not feel disposed to refer it to the marvellous." 



274 



