The Wild Pigeon of North America 51 



mingling sounds of sleigh bells, mixed with the rumbling 

 of an approaching storm. While I gazed in wonder and 

 astonishment, I beheld moving toward me in an un- 

 broken front millions of pigeons, the first I had seen that 

 season. They passed like a cloud through the branches 

 of the high trees, through the underbrush and over the 

 ground, apparently overturning every leaf. Statue-like 

 I stood, half-concealed by cedar boughs. They fluttered 

 all about me, lighting on my head and shoulders ; gently 

 I caught two in my hands and carefully concealed them 

 under my blanket. 



I now began to realize they were mating, preparatory 

 to nesting. It was an event which I had long hoped to 

 witness; so I sat down and carefully watched their move- 

 ments, amid the greatest tumult. I tried to understand 

 their strange language, and why they all chatted in con- 

 cert. In the course of the day the great on-moving mass 

 passed by me, but the trees were still filled with them 

 sitting in pairs in convenient crotches of the limbs, now 

 and then gently fluttering their half-spread wings and 

 uttering to their mates those strange, bell-like wooing 

 notes which I had mistaken for the ringing of bells in 

 the distance. 



On the third day after, this chattering ceased and all 

 were busy carrying sticks with which they were building 

 nests in the same crotches of the limbs they had occu- 

 pied in pairs the day before. On the morning of the 

 fourth day their nests were finished and eggs laid. The 



