40 NATURE AND WOODCRAFT. 



which are found nowhere but in North America. 

 Mr. Howard Saunders states that Passenger 

 Pigeons are often captured in the State of New 

 York with their crops still filled with undigested 

 grains of rice that must have been taken in the 

 distant fields of Georgia and South Carolina ; 

 apparently proving that they had passed over 

 the intervening space within a few hours. 



It certainly seems remarkable that a bird 

 should have the power of flying over four 

 thousand miles of sea ; but recently two dif- 

 ferent writers have recorded the fact that they 

 have noticed pigeons settle upon the water to 

 drink, and then rise from it with apparent ease. 

 And Mr. Darwin says that, where the banks 

 of the Nile are perpendicular, whole flocks of 

 pigeons have been seen to settle on the river and 

 drink while they floated down stream. He 

 adds that, seen from a distance, they resembled 

 flocks of gulls on the surface of the sea. 



The Passenger Pigeon is one of the handsomest 

 of its kind. The accounts of its migrations in 

 search of food are known to all. It is said to 

 move in such flocks as to darken the earth as 

 they pass over, and that one of these columns 

 brings devastation wherever it comes. 



