164 The Passenger Pigeon 



I would wait until the end of this wave was opposite 

 my hiding place and then arise and fire Into this windrow 

 of living, animated beauty, and I have picked up as 

 many as twenty-seven dead birds killed at a single shot 

 with an old flintlock smooth bore. Later in the fall 

 these birds would come in countless millions to feed 

 on the wild mast of beech nuts and acorns, and every 

 evening they would pass over our home, going west of 

 our place to what was known as Lodi Swamp. 



Many and many a time have I seen clouds of birds 

 that extended as for as the eye could reach, and the 

 sound of their wings was like the roar of a tempest. 

 And for those who are not acquainted with the habits 

 and flight of these birds, I wish to say that once in the 

 month of November, while these pigeons were going 

 from their feeding grounds to this roost in the Lodi 

 Swamp, they were met with a storm of sleet and snow. 

 The wind blew so hard that they could not breast it and 

 were compelled to alight in a sugar orchard near our 

 place. This orchard consisted of twenty acres, where 

 the timber had all been cut out, except the maples, and 

 when they commenced alighting, the trees already par- 

 tially loaded with snow and ice, and the vast flock of 

 pigeons being attracted by those alighting, all sought the 

 same resting place. 



Such vast numbers alighted that in a short time the 

 branches of the trees were broken and as fast as one 

 tree gave way those birds would alight on the already 



