t 
396 PASSENGER tIGEON. 
The Wild Pigeon of the United States inhabits a wide and exten- 
sive region of North America, on this side of the great Stony Moun: 
tains, beyond which, to the westward, I have not heard of their being 
seen. According to Mr. Hutchins, they abound in the country round 
Hudson’s Bay, where they usually remain as late as December, feeding, 
when the ground is covered with snow, on the buds of juniper. They 
spread over the whole of Canada; were scen by Captain Lewis and 
his party near the Great Falls of the Missouri, upwards of 2500 
miles from its mouth, reckoning the meanderings of the river; were 
also met with in the interior of Louisiana by Colonel Pike; and extend 
their range as far south as the Gulf of Mexico; occasionally visiting - 
or breeding in almost every quarter of the United States, 
But the most remarkable characteristic of these birds is their as- 
sociating together, both in their migrations, and also during the period 
of incubation, in such prodigious numbers, as almost to surpass be- 
lief? and which has no parallel among any other of the feathered 
tribes on the face of the earth, with which naturalists are acquainted, 
These migrations. appear to be undertaken rather in quest of food,’ 
than merely to avoid the cold of the climate; since we find them lin- 
gering in the northern regions, around Hudson’s Bay, so late as De- 
cember; and, since their appearance is so casual and irregular, some- 
times not visiting certain districts for several years in any considerable 
numbers, while at other times they are innumerable. I have witnessed 
these migrations in the Genesee 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 extensive regions abound with the nutritious beech 
nut, 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 con- 
sumed the whole produce of the beech trees, in an extensive district, 
they discover another, at the distance perhaps 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 place of general 
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 
different from that in which they had arrived the evening before ; and, at sunrise, all 
that were able to fly had disappeared; The howlings of the wolves now reached 
our ears; and the foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, raccoons, opossums, and pole-cats, 
were secn sneaking off from the spot, whilst Eagles and Hawks, of different species, 
accompanied by ‘a crowd of Vultures, came to supplant them, and enjoy their 
share of the spoil. It was then that the authors of all this devastation began their 
entry amongst the dead, the dying, and the mangled. The Pigeons were picked up 
and piled in heaps, until each ned as many as he could ‘escbly dispose of, when 
the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.” — Ep. : 
