PIGEONS. 397 



other times they are innumerable. I have witnessed these 

 migrations in the Genessee Country — often in Pennsylvania, 

 and also in various parts of Virginia, with amazement ; but 

 all that I had then seen of them were mere straggling parties, 

 when compared with the congregated millions which I have 

 since beheld in our Western forests, in the States of Ohio, 

 Kentucky, and the Indiana territory. These fertile and ex- 

 tensive regions abound with the nutritious beechnut, which 

 constitutes the chief food of the Wild Pigeon. In seasons 

 when these nuts are abundant, corresponding multitudes of 

 Pigeons may be confidently expected. It sometimes happens 

 that having consumed the whole produce of the beech trees in 

 an extensive district, they discover another at a distance per- 

 haps of sixty or eighty miles, to which they regularly repair 

 every morning, and return as regularly in the course of the 

 day, or in the evening, to their general place of rendezvous, 

 or as it is usually called, the roosting place. These roosting 

 places are always in the woods, and sometimes occupy a large 

 extent of forest. When they have frequented one of these 

 places for some time, the appearance it exhibits is surprising. 

 The ground is covered to the depth of several inches with 

 their dung ; all the tender grass and underwood destroyed ; 

 the surface strewed with large limbs of trees broken down by 

 the weight of the birds clustering one above another ; and the 

 trees themselves, for thousands of acres, killed as completely 

 as if girdled with an axe. The marks of this desolation re- 

 main for many years on the spot ; and numerous places could 

 be pointed out where for several years after scarce a single 

 vegetable made its appearance." 



In speaking of their breeding places, Wilson says : " In the 

 western countries above mentioned, these are generally in 

 beech woods, and often extend in nearly a straight line across 

 the country for a great way. Not far from Shelbyville in 

 the state of Kentucky, about five years ago, there was one of 

 these breeding places, which stretched through the woods in 

 nearly a north and south direction; was several miles in 

 breadth, and was said to be upwards of forty miles in extent I 

 In this tract almost every tree was furnished with nests, 



