180 
PASSENGER TURTLE. 
sacks and load horses with them. By the Indians, a 
pigeon-roost or breeding-place is considered an im- 
portant source of national profit and dependence for 
that season, and all their active ingenuity is exercised 
on the occasion. The breeding-place differs from the 
former in its greater extent. In the western coun- 
tries, viz. the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, 
these are generally in back woods, and often extend 
in nearly a straight lino across the country for a 
great way. Not far from Shelbyville, 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 se- 
veral miles in breadth, and was said to be upwards 
of forty miles in extent ! In this tract almost every 
tree was furnished with nests wherever the branches 
could accommodate them. The pigeons made their 
first appearance there about the 1 0th 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 coun- 
try, came with waggons, axes, beds, cooking uten- 
sils, 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, 
