230 
VEETEBRATA. 
here in large numbers. Other species of Coluniba known in the United States are as follows : C. 
fasciata, sixteen inches long, purplish-gray, found in the Rocky Mountains ; C. leucocepliala^ four- 
teen and a half inches long, slate-blue, head white, found in the Keys of Florida ; C. zenaida — 
Zenaida amahilis of Bonaparte — a beautiful and gentle species, twelve and a half inches long, 
brownish-ash, found in Florida and the West Indies : C. Jlavirostris, found on the lower Rio 
Grande : Melopelia leucoptera ; Scardafella squamosa : Oreopeleia Martinica and Starncenas cya- 
nocephala^ all found in the Southern Territories of the United States and the West Indies, 
Genus ECTOPISTES : Ectopistes. — This inclades the Common Wild Pigeon of the United 
States — often called the Passenger Pigeon — E. migratoria^ sixteen to eighteen inches long, bluish- 
gray above, breast reddish-brown : the food consists of beech-nuts, acorns, berries, rice, seeds, &c. 
It ranges throughout North America from 25° to 62° north. It builds a slight, flat nest of sticks, 
and lays two eggs. It is migratory, moving to the northwest in vast flocks in April and return- 
ing to the South in August and September. The migrations are variable as to time and numbers ; 
latterly they have been less multitudinous than they were fifteen or twenty years ago. Audubon 
noticed a continuous flight for three days ; the whole number of birds, according to this calcula- 
tion, amounting to one billion one hundred and fourteen millions ! As every pigeon consumes 
half a pint of food daily, the consumption of these each day would be eight millions seven hun- 
dred and twelve thousand bushels! Wilson gives the following graphic account : " The roosting- 
places are always in the woods, and sometimes occupy a large extent of forest. When they have 
frequented one of those 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 under- 
wood destroyed ; the surface strewed with large limbs of trees, broken down by the weight of 
the birds collecting one above another; and the trees themselves, for thousands of acres, killed 
as completely as if girdled with an axe. The marks of their desolation remain for many years on 
the spot ; and numerous places could be pointed out where, for several years after, scarcely a 
single vegetable made its appearance. AVhen these roosts are first discovered, the inhabitants, 
from considerable distances, visit them in the night with guns, clubs, long poles, pots of sulphur, 
and various other engines of destruction. In a few hours they fill many sacks and load horses 
with them. By the Indians a pigeon-roost or breeding-place is considered an important source 
of national profit and dependence for that season, and all their active ingenuity is exercised on 
the occasion." "This breeding-place differs from the former in its greater extent. In the western 
countries, namely, the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, these are generally in back woods, 
and often extend in nearly a straight line across the country for a great way. Not far from Shel- 
byville, in the State of Kentucky, about five years ago, there was one of these breeding-places, 
which stretched through the woods in nearly a north and south direction, was several miles in 
breadth, and was said to be upward of forty miles in extent. In this tract almost every tree was 
furnished with nests wherever the bi'anches could accommodate them. The pigeons made their 
first appearance there about the 10th of April, and left it altogether with their young before the 
25th of May. As soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the nests, numerous 
parties of the inhabitants from all parts of the adjacent country came with wagons, axes, beds, 
cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped 
for several days at this immense nursery. Several of them informed me that the noise was so 
great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to hear another speak 
without bawling in his ear. The ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and young 
squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on which herds of hogs were fatten- 
ing. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs 
from the nests at pleasure, while, from twenty feet upward to the tops of the trees, the view 
through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttei-ing multitudes of pigeons, 
their wings roaring like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber ; for now the 
axemen were at work, cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowded with nests, and 
contrived to fell them in such a manner, that in their descent they might bring down several 
others; by which means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred squabs, 
little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one heap of fat. On some single trees upward 
