PASSENGER TURTLE. 
179 
Gpoi'gia and Carolina, these districts being the near- 
est in which they could possibly have procured a 
supply of that kind of food.” The distance between 
these points is stated to be between three and four 
hundred miles; and, as the decomposition of their 
food is completely efiected in twelve hours, this 
space must have been travelled within the short pe- 
riod of five or six hours. 
The account of their roosting and breeding places 
is too curious to be omitted ; we therefore make no 
apology for quoting at length Wilson’s description 
contained in the American Ornithology. “ The 
roosting-places are always in the woods, and some- 
times 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 underwood 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. When these roosts 
are first discovered, the inhabitants, from consider- 
able 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 
