106 



PASSENGER PIGEON 



I had left the public road to visit the remains of the breeding 

 place near Shelbyville, and was traversing the woods with my gun, 

 on my way to Frankfort, when about one o'clock the Pigeons, which 

 I had observed flying the greater part of the morning northerly, 

 began to return in such immense numbers as I never before had 

 witnessed. Coming to an opening by the side of a creek called the 

 Benson, where I had a more uninterrupted view, I was astonished 

 at their appearance. They were flying with great steadiness and 

 rapidity, at a height beyond gun shot, in several strata deep, and 

 so close together that could shot have reached them, one discharge 

 could not have failed of bringing down several individuals. From 

 right to left far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast pro- 

 cession extended ; seeming every where equally crowded. Curious 

 to determine how long this appearance would continue, I took out 

 my watch to note the time, and sat down to observe them. It was 

 then half past one. I sat for more than an hour, but instead of a 

 diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to in- 

 crease both in numbers and rapidity; and, anxious to reach Frank- 

 fort before night, I rose and went on. About four o'clock in the 

 afternoon I crossed the Kentucky river, at the town of Frankfort, 

 at which time the living torrent above my head seemed as nume- 

 rous and as extensive as ever. Long after this I observed them, 

 in large bodies that continued to pass for six or eight minutes, and 

 these again were followed by other detached bodies, all moving in 

 the same south-east direction till after six in the evening. The 

 great breadth of front which this mighty multitude preserved would 

 seem to intimate a corresponding breadth of their breeding place, 

 which by several gentlemen who had lately passed through part of 

 it, was stated to me at several miles. It was said to be in Green 

 county, and that the young began to fly about the middle of March. 

 On the seventeenth of April forty-nine miles beyond Danville, and 

 not far from Green river, I crossed this same breeding place, where 

 the nests for more than three miles spotted every tree; the leaves 



