UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 33* 



call generally in the evening, soon after sunset, and continues it, with 

 short occasional interruptions, for several hours. Towards morning 

 these repetitions are renewed, and continue until dawn has fairly ap- 

 peared. During the day it is altogether silent. This call instantly 

 attracts the attention of a stranger, and is strikingly different from 

 that of the Whip-poor-will. In sound and articulation it seems plainly 

 to express the words which have been applied to it, Chuc k -will's - 

 widow, pronouncing each syllable leisurely and distinctly, putting the 

 principal emphasis on the last word. In a still evening this bird may 

 be heard at the distance of nearly a mile, the tones of its voice being 

 stronger and more full than those of the Whip-poor-will, who utters 

 his with much greater rapidity. 



This singular genus of birds, formed to subsist on the superabun- 

 dance of nocturnal insects, are exactly and surprisingly fitted to their 

 peculiar mode of life. Their flight is low, to accommodate itself to 

 their prey ; silent, that they may be the better concealed, and sweep 

 upon it unawares ; their sight most acute in the dusk, when such 

 insects are abroad ; their evolutions something like those of the Bat, 

 quick and sudden ; their mouths capable of prodigious expansion, to 

 seize with more certainty, and furnished with long branching hairs or 

 bristles,* serving as palisadoes to secure what comes between them. 

 Reposing so much during the heats of day, they are much infested 

 with vermin, particularly about the head, and are provided with a 

 comb on the inner edge of the middle claw, with which they are 

 often employed in ridding themselves of these pests. 



The Passenger or Wild Pigeon inhabits a wide and extensive region 

 of North America, on this side of the Rocky Mountains, beyond which 

 to the westward, we have not heard of their having been seen. They 

 abound in the country round Hudson's Bay ; spread over the whole 

 of Canada ; were seen by Lewis and Clark's party, near the Great 

 Falls of the Missouri ; were also met with in the interior of Louisiana 

 by Pike ; and extend their range as far south as the gulf of Mexico ; 

 occasionally visiting or breeding in almost every quarter of the 

 United States. 



But the most remarkable characteristic of these birds is their associ- 

 ating together, botL in their migrations, and also during the period 

 of incubation, in such prodigious numbers as almost to surpass belief $ 

 and which has no parallel among any other of the feathered tribes 

 with which naturalists are acquainted.! I have witnessed these migra- 

 tions in the Genesee country — often in Pennsylvania, and also in. 

 various parts of Virginia, with amazement; but all that I had then 

 seen of them were mere straggling parties, when compared with the 

 congregated millions which I have since beheld in our western 

 forests, in the States of Ohio, Kentucky and the Indiana territory. 

 These fertile and extensive regions abound with the nutritious beech 

 nut which constitutes the chief food of the Wild Pigeon. In seasons 

 when these nuts are abundant, corresponding multitudes of Pigeons 

 may be confidently expected. It sometimes happens that haying 

 consumed the whole produce of the Beech trees in an extensive dis- 

 trict, they discover another at the distance, perhaps, of sixty or eighty 

 miles, to which they regularly repair every morning, and return as 



( * The Night-hawk is an exception to some of these remarks, its flight being- 

 high, and its mouth destitute of the bristles, 

 | The reader will observe that Mr Wilson is the narrator. 



