0(5 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



I have commenced my description of this species with the above account 

 of its flight, because the most important facts connected with its habits 

 relate to its migrations. These are entrely owing to the necessity of 

 procuring food, and are not performed with the view of escaping the severity 

 of a northern latitude, or of seeking a southern one for the purpose of 

 breeding. They consequently do not take place at any fixed period or 

 season of the year. Indeed, it sometimes happens that a continuance of a 

 sufficient supply of food in one district will keep these birds absent from 

 another for years. I know, at least, to a certainty, that in Kentucky they 

 remained for several years constantly, and were nowhere else to be found. 

 They all suddenly disappeared one season when the mast was exhausted, 

 and did not return for a long period. Similar facts have been observed in 

 other States. 



Their great power of flight enables them to survey and pass over an 

 astonishing extent of country in a very short time. This is proved by facts 

 well known. Thus, Pigeons have been killed in the neighbourhood of New 

 York, with their crops full of rice, which they must have collected in 

 the fields of Georgia and Carolina, these districts being the nearest in which 

 they could possibly have procured a supply of that kind of food. As their 

 power of digestion is so great that they will decompose food entirely in 

 twelve hours, they must in this case have travelled between three and 

 four hundred miles in six hours, which shews their speed to be at an average 

 of about one mile in a minute. A velocity such as this would enable 

 one of these birds, were it so inclined, to visit the European continent in 

 less than three days. 



This great power of flight is seconded by as great a power of vision, 

 which enables them, as they travel at that swift rate, to inspect the country 

 below, discover their food wtth facility, and thus attain the object for which 

 their journey has been undertaken. This I have also proved to be the case, 

 by having observed them, when passing over a sterile part of the country, or 

 one scantily furnished with food suited to them, keep high in the air, flying 

 with an extended front, so as to enable them to survey hundreds of acres at 

 once. On the contrary, when the land is richly covered with food, or the 

 trees abundantly hung with mast, they fly low, in order to discover the part 

 most plentifully supplied. 



Their body is of an elongated oval form, steered by a long well-plumed 

 tail, and propelled by well-set wings, the muscles of which are very large 

 and powerful for the size of the bird. When an individual is seen gliding 

 through the woods and close to the observer, it passes like a thought, and on 

 trying to see it again, the eye searches in vain; the bird is gone. 



The multitudes of Wild Pigeons in our woods are astonishing. Indeed, 



