364 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 



United States, and round the Gulf of Mexico, the Passenger Pigeon appears at 

 uncertain intervals, and for longer or shorter periods, but often in numbers that 

 are scarcely credited by those who have not beheld them*. Thus Wilson 

 informs us that they repair every morning to certain places in the western forests 

 in such countless multitudes, that their dung covers the ground to the depth of 

 several inches, all the grass and underwood is destroyed, and the trees them- 

 selves killed, over thousands of acres, as completely as if girdled by an axe. 

 The object of this locust-like visitation is the beech- mast ; and the devastation 

 is not repaired till after a long lapse of years. These spots are termed Pigeon- 

 roosts, and are perhaps fifty or sixty miles distant from the breeding-places, 

 which are no less remarkable and still more extensive. The author we have 

 just quoted describes one which he visited, in Kentucky, as forty miles long and 

 several miles wide ; every tree loaded with nests, and the ground strewed with 

 broken branches, eggs, and young squab Pigeons, which had fallen from above, 

 and on which large herds of hogs were fattening. From twenty feet upwards to 

 the tops of the trees there was a perpetual tumult and fluttering of crowds of 

 Pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder ; while the birds of prey were sailing 

 over head in great numbers, and seizing the squabs at pleasuref. There were 

 often above a hundred nests on a single tree, each containing one young bird 

 only ; and the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the multitudes 

 which clung to them, destroyed numbers of the birds, and rendered it dangerous 

 for any one to walk beneath. The Pigeons came to the breeding-place on the 

 10th of April, and left it with their young before the 25th of May. It is after 

 this period that they resort to the fur-countries to breed ; and it is probable that 

 several broods are raised in a season at different places. — R. 



DESCRIPTION 

 Of a young male, killed near Philadelphia, in Mr. Swainson's museum. 



Colour. — General colour of the upper plumage light umber-brown, blending into 

 yellowish-brown on the scapulars, the outer webs of the tertials, and the margins of the 

 primary quills, where this latter colour becomes brighter and more reddish : the head, neck, 

 and part of the wing coverts are clove-brown ; the ends of the feathers whitish, forming little 

 curved bars or crescents. Outer half of the lesser wing coverts and the lower part of the 

 back and rump delicate light lavender purple, changing gradually on the tail and upper 



* Wilson estimates a flock, which continued to fly over his head in an equal stream for the greatest part of a day, 

 to have been a mile in breadth and two hundred and forty miles in length, — comprehending, at three pigeons to a 

 square yard, upwards of two thousand two hundred and thirty millions. 



f M. Audubon has recently given equally striking statements. 



