108 



PASSENGER PIGEON 



of one mile in a minute; four hours, the time it continued passing, 

 would make its whole length two hundred and forty miles. Again, 

 supposing that each square yard of this moving body comprehended 

 three Pigeons; the square yards in the whole space multiplied by 

 three, would give two thousand two hundred and thirty millions, two 

 hundred and seventy-two thousand pigeons I An almost inconceiva- 

 ble multitude, and yet probably far below the actual amount. Com- 

 puting each of these to consume half a pint of mast daily, the whole 

 quantity at this rate would equal seventeen millions, four hundred 

 and twenty-four thousand bushels per day ! Heaven has wisely and 

 graciously given to these birds rapidity of flight and a disposition 

 to range over vast uncultivated tracts of the earth; otherwise they 

 must have perished in the districts where they resided, or devour- 

 ed up the whole productions of agriculture as well as those of the 

 forests. 



A few observations on the mode of flight of these birds must 

 not be omitted. The appearance of large detached bodies of them 

 in the air, and the various evolutions they display, are strikingly 

 picturesque and interesting. In descending the Ohio by myself in 

 the month of February, I often rested on my oars to contemplate 

 their aerial manoeuvres. A column, eight or ten miles in length, 

 would appear from Kentucky, high in air, steering across to In- 

 diana. The leaders of this great body would sometimes gradually 

 vary their course, until it formed a large bend of more than a mile 

 in diameter, those behind tracing the exact route of their predeces- 

 sors. This would continue sometimes long after both extremities 

 were beyond the reach of sight, so that the whole with its glittery 

 undulations, marked a space on the face of the heavens resembling 

 the windings of a vast and majestic river. When this bend became 

 very great, the birds, as if sensible of the unnecessary circuitous 

 course they were taking, suddenly changed their direction, so that 

 what was in column before became an immense front, straighten- 

 ing all its indentures, until it swept the heavens in one vast and in- 



