THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 143 
der, and actually tarried there till the rising of 
the sun ; at which time, Mr. Audubon informs 
us, they were seen sneaking off. He himself saw 
what he relates. 
But let us pass on. " The pigeons/' continues 
Mr. Audubon, " arriving by thousands, alighted 
every where, one above another, until solid masses 
as large as hogsheads were formed on the branches 
all around." Solid masses ! Our European pigeons, 
in a similar situation, would have been all smo- 
thered in less than three minutes. Mr. Audubon 
informs us, towards the end of his narrative, that 
the feathers of this pigeon " fall off at the least 
touch.'* From this, we may infer to a certainty 
that every pigeon which was unlucky enough to 
be undermost in the solid masses would lose every 
feather from its uppermost parts, through the 
pressure of the feet of those above it. Now, I 
would fain believe that instinct taught these pi- 
geons to resort to a certain part of the forest, 
solely for the purpose of repose, and not to undergo 
a process of inevitable suffocation ; and at the same 
time, to have their backs deprived of every feather, 
while they were voluntarily submitting to this self- 
inflicting method of ending their days* 
" Many trees," says Mr. Audubon, " two feet in 
diameter, 1 observed, were broken off at no great 
distance from the ground ; and the branches of 
many of the largest and tallest had given way, as if 
the forest had been swept by a tornado. Every 
thing proved to me that the number of birds resort- 
ing to this part of the forest must be immense beyond 
