338 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



regularly in the course of the day, or in the evening, to their pla'ce 

 of general rendezvous, or as it is usually called, the roosting place. 

 These roosting places are always in the woods, and sometimes oc- 

 cupy a large extent of forest. When they have frequented one of 

 these places for some time, the appearance it exhibits is surprising. 

 The ground is covered to the depth of several inches with their 

 dung; all the tender grass and underwood destroyed; the surface 

 strewed with large limbs of trees broken down by the weight of the 

 birds clustering one above another ; and the trees themselves, for 

 thousands of acres, killed as completely as if girdled with an axe. 

 The marks of this desolation remain for many years on the spot ; and 

 numerous places could be pointed out where for several years after 

 scarce a single vegetable made its appearance. 



The breeding place differs from the roosting place in its greater 

 extent. In the western countries above mentioned, these are gene- 

 rally in beech woods, and often extend in nearly a straight line 

 across the country for a great way. Not far from Shelbyville, in the 

 state of Kentucky, a few years ago, there was one of these breeding 

 places, which stretched through the woods in nearly a north and south 

 direction ; was several miles in breadth, and was said to be upwards 

 of forty miles long. In this tract almost every tree was furnished 

 with nests, wherever the branches could accommodate them. As 

 soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the nests, 

 numerous parties of the inhabitants came with wagons, axes, beds, 

 cooking utensils, and encamped for several days at this immense 

 nursery. Several of them informed me, that the noise in the woods 

 was so great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for 

 one person to hear another speak, without bawling in his ear. The 

 ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs and squabs, 

 which had been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs 

 were fattening. Hawks, Vultures and Eagles were sailing about in 

 great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their nests at pleasure ; 

 while from twenty feet upwards to the tops of the trees, the view 

 through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and 

 fluttering multitudes of Pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder, 

 mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber : for now the axe- 

 men were at work cutting down those trees that seemed to be most 

 crowded with nests, and contrived to fell them in such a manner, that 

 in their descent they might bring down several others ; by which 

 means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred 

 squabs, little inferior in size to the old Pigeons, and almost one mass 

 of fat. On some single trees upwards of one hundred nests were 

 found, each containing one young only, a circumstance in the history 

 of this bird not generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to 

 walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from the frequent fall 

 of large branches, broken down by the weight of the multitudes 

 above, and which in their descent often destroyed numbers of the 

 birds themselves ; while the clothes of those engaged in traversing 

 the woods, were completely covered with the excrements of the 

 Pigeons. 



I passed for several miles through this same breeding place, where 

 every tree was spotted with nests, the remains of those above des- 

 cribed. In many instances I counted upwards of ninety nests on a sin- 

 gle tree ; but the Pigeons had abandoned this place for another, sixty 

 or eighty miles off towards Green river, where they were said at that 



