102 



PASSENGER PIGEON. 

 COLUMBA MIGRATORIA. 

 [Plate XLIV.— Fig. 1.] 



Catesb. I, 23. — Linn. Syst. 285. — Tdeton, 4,79.— Arct. Zool. p. 322, Ab. 187. — 

 Bkisson, I, 100. — Buff. II, 527. — Pe ale's Museum, No. 5084. 



THIS remarkable bird merits a distinguished place in the an- 

 nals of our feathered tribes; a claim to which I shall endeavour to 

 do justice; and tho it would be impossible, in the bounds allotted 

 to this account, to relate all I have seen and heard of this species, 

 yet no circumstance shall be omitted with which I am acquainted, 

 (however extraordinary some of these may appear) that may tend 

 to illustrate its history. 



The Wild Pigeon of the United States inhabits a wide and 

 extensive region of North America, on this side of the Great Stony 

 mountains, beyond which to the westward, I have not heard of their 

 being seen. According to Mr. Hutchins they abound in the coun- 

 try round Hudson's Bay, where they usually remain as late as De- 

 cember, feeding, when the ground is covered with snow, on the 

 buds of juniper. They spread over the whole of Canada — were 

 seen by captain Lewis and his party near the Great Falls of the 

 Missouri, upwards of two thousand five hundred miles from its 

 mouth, reckoning the meanderings of the river — were also met with 

 in the interior of Louisiana by colonel Pike; and extend their range 

 as far south as the gulf of Mexico ; occasionally visiting or breed- 

 ing in almost every quarter of the United States. 



But the most remarkable characteristic of these birds is their 

 associating together, both in their migrations and also during the 

 period of incubation, in such prodigious numbers as almost to sur- 



