436 
THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
Fruit Pigeon is in great request for the table, and is shot by hundreds. During the nutmeg 
season, these Pigeons find such an abundance of food that they become inordinately fat, and 
are sometimes so extremely plump, that when they are shot, and fall to the ground, they 
burst asunder. 
Setting aside the gastronomical properties of this bird, it is a most useful creature, being 
the means of disseminating far and wide the remarkable nutmeg-tree. The Pigeon being a 
bird of large appetite, swallows the nutmeg together with the mace, but only the latter sub- 
stance is subject to digestion, the nutmeg itself passing through the system with its repro- 
ductive powers not only uninjured, but even improved. The sojourn within the body of the 
bird seems to be almost necessary in 
order to induce the nutmeg to grow ; 
and when planted by human hands, 
it must be chemically treated with 
some preparation before it will strike 
root. 
The color of this species is as 
follows: The forehead, cheeks, and 
throat are grayish- white, and the 
rest of the head and the back of the 
neck are gray with a slaty blue wash. 
The back and upper portions of the 
body are light metallic green. The 
lower part of the throat and the 
breast are rusty gray, and the thighs 
and abdomen are deep brownish-red. 
The under surface of the tail is also 
green, but with a reddish gloss. The 
total length of the bird is about 
fourteen or fifteen inches. 
Among the most extraordinary 
of birds, the Passenger Pigeon may 
take very high rank, not on account 
of its size or beauty, but on account 
of the extraordinary multitudes in 
which it sometimes migrates from 
one place to another. The scenes 
which take place during these migra- 
tions are so strange, so wonderful, 
and so entirely unlike any events on this side of the Atlantic, that they could not 
be believed, but for the trustworthy testimony by which they are corroborated. To 
abridge or to condense the spirited narrations of W ilson and Audubon would be impossible, 
without losing, at the same time, the word-painting which makes their descriptions so 
exceedingly valuable ; and, accordingly, these well-known naturalists shall speak for them- 
selves. 
After professing his belief that the chief object of the migration is the search after food, 
and that the birds having devoured all the nutriment in one part of the country take wing in 
order to feed on the beech-mast of another region, Wilson proceeds to describe a breeding- 
place seen by himself in Kentucky, which was several miles in breadth, was said to be nearly 
forty miles in length, and in which every tree was absolutely loaded with nests. All the 
smaller branches were destroyed by the birds, many of the large limbs were broken off and 
thrown on the ground, while no few of the grand forest-trees themselves were killed as surely 
as if the axe had been employed for their destruction. The Pigeons had arrived about the 
tenth of April, and left it by the end of May. 
PASSENGER PIGEON . — Ectopistes migratorius. 
