‘ PASSENGER PIGEON. 397 
another; and the trees theinselves, for thousands of acres, killed as 
completely as if girdled with an axe. The marks of this desolation 
remain for many years on the spot; and numerous places could be 
pointed out, where, for several years after, scarcely a single vegetable 
made its appearance. .  - 
When these roosts are first discovered, the inhabitants, from consid- 
erable distances, visit them in the night, with guns, clubs, long poles, 
pots of sulphur, and various other engines of destruction. Ina few 
hours, they fill many sacks, and load their horses with:them. By the 
Indians, a Pigeon roost, or breeding place, is considered an important 
source of national profit and dependence for that season; and_ all 
their active ingenuity is exercised on the occasion. The breeding 
place differs from the former in its greater extent. 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! 
In this tract, almost every tree was furnished with nests, wherever the 
branches could accommodate them. The Pigeons made their first 
appearance there about the 10th of April, and left it altogether, with 
their young, before the 25th of May. ; ° 
As soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the 
nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants, from all parts of the 
adjacent country, came with wagons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, 
many of them accompanied: by the greater part of their families, and 
encamped for several days at this immense nursery. Several of them 
informed me, that the noise in the woods was so great as to terrify 
their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to hear another 
speak, without bawling in his ear. The ground was strewed with 
. broken limbs of trees, egos, and young Squab Pigeons, which had 
been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were 
fattening. Hawks, Buzzards, and Eagles, were sailing about in great 
numbers, and seizing the Squabs from their nests at pleasure ;. while, 
from twenty feet upwards to the tops of the trees, the view through 
the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and flutter- 
ing multitudes of Pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, mingled 
with the frequent crash of falling timber; for now the axe-mén were 
at work, cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowded 
with nests, and contrived to fell them in such a manner, that, in their 
descent, they might bring down several others; by which means the 
falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred Squabs, 
little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one mass of fat. On 
some single trees, upwards of one hundred nests were found, each 
containing one young only ; a circumstance, in the history of this bird, 
not generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to walk under 
these flying and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of large 
branches, broken .down by the weight of the multitudes above, and 
which, in their descent, often destroyed numbers of-the birds them- 
selves; while the clothes of those engaged in. traversing the woods 
were completely covered with the excrements of the Pigeons. ° 
34 
