Chap. VIII.] PAEEOQUETS. 
257 
bazaar, that their noise drowned the Babel of tongues 
bargaining for the evening provisions. Hearing of the 
swarms that resorted to this spot, I posted myself on a 
bridge some half mile distant, and attempted to count 
the flocks which came from a single direction to the 
eastward. About four o'clock in the afternoon, strag- 
gling parties began to wend towards home, and in the 
course of half an hour the current fairly set in. But I 
soon found that I had no longer distinct flocks to count, 
it became one living screaming stream. Some flew high 
in the air till right above their homes, and dived ab- 
ruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level 
with the trees ; others kept along the ground and dashed 
close by my face with the rapidity of thought, their 
brilliant plumage shirring with an exquisite lustre in the 
sun-light. I waited on the spot till the evening closed, 
when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, the 
birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot 
they rose with a noise like the f rushing of a mighty 
wind,' but soon settled again, and such a din com- 
menced as I shall never forget ; the shrill screams of 
the birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and 
the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees was almost 
deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the 
Government Eest House." 1 
IV. Columbia. Pigeons. — Of pigeons and doves 
there are at least a dozen species. Some live entirely 
on trees 2 , never alighting on the ground ; others, not- 
withstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are 
1 Annals of Nat. Hist. vol. xiii. 2 Treron bicincta, Jerd. 
p. 263. 
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