PASSENGER PIGEON 171 



Let me tell you that I in my boyhood — half 



a century later than Wilson's visit to Kentucky 

 — beheld things that you will hardly believe. 



"The vast oak forest of Kentucky was what 

 attracted the Passenger Pigeon. In the autumn 

 when acorns were ripe, but not yet fallen, the 

 pigeons filled the trees at times and places, eat- 

 ing them from the cups. Walking quietly some 

 sunny afternoon through the bluegrass pastures, 

 you might approach an oak and see nothing but 

 the tree itself, thick bough with the afternoon 

 sunlight sparkling on the leaves along one side. 

 As you drew nearer, all at once, as if some vio- 

 lent explosion had taken place within the tree, 

 a blue smoke-like cloud burst out all along the 

 tree-top — the simultaneous flight of the startled 

 pigeons. Or all night long there might be wind 

 and rain and the swishing of boughs and the 

 tapping of loosened leaves against the window 

 panes; and when you stepped out of doors next 

 morning, it had suddenly become clear and cold. 

 Walking out into the open and looking up at the 

 clear sky you might see this : an arch of pigeons, 

 breast by breast, wing-tip to wing-tip, high up 

 in the air as the wild geese fly, slowly moving 

 southward. You could not see the end of the 

 arch on one horizon or the other; the whole 

 firmament was spanned by that mighty arch of 

 pigeons flying south from the sudden cold. Not 



