THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 34 
rivers, its forests, streams, springs and caves, 
its verdurous heights and charming valleys 
must have rendered this abiding place nothing 
inferior in attraction, to Louisville. Here he 
remained for several years, and unfaltering in en- 
terprise, added fresh stores to his ornithological 
lore. Among the most interesting of his obser- 
vations were those relative to the character and 
habits of that bird of romantic tradition— 
the passenger pigeon. The flight of this bird 
is performed with singular rapidity. With 
shrewd caution, it breaks the force of its de- 
scent by repeated flappings as it nears the 
earth, from dread of injury on alighting too 
suddenly. Its migrations, which are for the 
purpose of securing food, and not on account 
of temperature, do not, therefore take place at 
any fixed season. It remains for several years 
in Kentucky. This is owing, probably, to the 
exuberant fertility of the soil, the passenger 
pigeon requiring, apparently, a plentiful supply 
of food, equivalent to its powers of digestion, 
which are as extraordinary as its capacity of 
flight. - 
These aerial passengers, travelling at the rate 
of four hundred miles in six hours, are enabled, 
if so inclined, to visit the whole European con- 
tinent in two or three days. They are facilitated 
in the object for which they fly—the discovery 
