PASSENGER PIGEON. 401 
even twelve cents, per dozen; and Pigeons, become the order of the 
day at dinner, breakfast, and supper, until the very name becomes 
sickening. When they have been kept alive, and fed for some time 
on corn and buckwheat, their flesh acquires great superiority ; but, in 
their common state, they are dry and blackish, and far inferior to the 
full grown young ones, or Squabs. ‘ 
The nest of the Wild Pigeon is formed of a few dry slender twigs, 
carelessly put together, and with so little concavity, that the young 
one, when half grown, can easily be seen from below. The eggs are 
pure white. Great numbers of Hawks, and sometimes the Bald Eagle 
himself, hover about those breeding places, and seize the old or the 
young from the nest, amidst the rising multitudes, and with the most 
daring effrontery. The young, when beginning to fly, confine them- 
selves to the under part of the tall woods, where there is no brush, 
and where nuts and acorns are abundant, searching among the leaves 
for mast, and appear like a prodigious torrent rolling along through the 
woods, every one striving to be in tie front. Vast numbers of them 
are shot while in this situation. A person told me, that he once rode 
furiously into one of these rolling multitudes, and picked up thirteen 
Pigeons, which had been trampled to death by his horse’s feet. Ina 
few minutes they will beat the whole nuts from a tree with their wings, 
while all is a scramble, both above and below, for the same. They 
have the same cooing notes common to domestic Pigeons, but much 
less of their gesticulations. In some flocks you will find nothing but 
young ones, which are easily distinguishable by their motley dress. 
In others, they will be mostly females; and again, great multitudes 
of males, with few or no females. I cannot account for this in any 
other way than that, during the time of incubation, the males are ex- 
clusively engaged in procuring food, both for themselves and their 
mates ; and the young, being unable yet to undertake these extensive 
excursions, associate together accordingly. But, even in winter, I 
know of several species of birds who separate in this manner, particu- 
larly the Red-winged Starling, among whom thousands of old males 
may be found, with few or no young or females along with them, 
Stragglers from these immense armies settle in almost every part 
of the country, particularly among the beech woods, and in the pine 
and hemlock woods of the eastern and northern parts of the conti- 
nent. Mr. Pennant informs us, that they breed near Moose Fort, at 
Hudson’s Bay, in N. lat. 51°, and I myself have seen the remains of a 
large breeding place as far south as the country of the Chactaws, in 
lat. 32°. In the former of these places they are said to remain until De- 
cember; from which circumstance, it is evident that they are not reg- 
ular in their migrations, like many other species, but rove about, as 
scarcity of food urges them. Every spring, however, as well as fall, 
more or less of them are seen in the neighborhood of Philadelphia: 
but it is only once in several years that they appear in such formida- 
ble bodies; and this commonly when the snows are heavy to the 
iin the winter here more than usually mild, and acorns, &c., abun- 
ant. 
The Passenger Pigeon is sixteen inches long, and twenty-four inches 
in extent; bill, black; nostril, covered by a high rounding protu- 
berance ; eye, brilliant fiery orange; orbit or space surrounding it, 
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