PASSENGER PIGEON 



103 



pass belief; and which has no parallel among any other of the fea- 

 thered tribes, on the face of the earth, with which naturalists are 

 acquainted. 



These migrations appear to be undertaken rather in quest of 

 food, than merely to avoid the cold of the climate; since we find 

 them lingering in the northern regions around Hudson's Bay so late 

 as December; and since their appearance is so casual and irregu- 

 lar; sometimes not visiting certain districts for several years in 

 any considerable numbers, while at other times they are innume- 

 rable. I have witnessed these migrations in the Genessee country 

 — often in Pennsylvania, and also in various parts of Virginia, with 

 amazement; but all that I had then seen of them were mere strag- 

 gling parties, when compared with the congregated millions which 

 I have since beheld in our western forests, in the states of Ohio, 

 Kentucky, and the Indiana territory. These fertile and extensive 

 regions abound with the nutritious beech nut, which constitutes the 

 chief food of the Wild Pigeon. In seasons when these nuts are 

 abundant, corresponding multitudes of Pigeons may be confidently 

 expected. It sometimes happens that having consumed the whole 

 produce of the beech trees in an extensive district, they discover 

 another at the distance perhaps of sixty or eighty miles, to which 

 they regularly repair every morning, and return as regularly in the 

 course of the day, or in the evening, to their place of general ren- 

 dezvous, or as it is usually called, the roosting place. These roost- 

 ing places are always in the woods, and sometimes occupy 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 clus- 

 tering 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 nume- 



