PASSENGER TURTLE. 
181 
and young squab pigeons, which had been precipi- 
tated from above, and on which herds of hogs were 
fattening. Hawks, buzzards, and eagles, were sail- 
ing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs 
from the nests at pleasure ; while, from twenty feet 
upwards to the top of the trees, the view through 
the woods presented a perpetual tumult of crowding 
and fluttering 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 fall- 
ing of one large tree sometimes produced 200 squabs, 
little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one 
heap of fat. On some single trees, upwards of a hun- 
dred nests were foimd, each containing one squab 
only ; a circumstance, in the history of this bird, not 
generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to 
walk under these flying and fluttering millions, from 
the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by 
the weight of the multitudes above, and which, in 
their descent, often destroyed numbers of the birds 
themselves ; while the clothes of those engaged in 
traversing the woods were corapletly covered with 
the excrements of the pigeons. These circumstances 
were related to me by many of the most respectable 
part of the community in that quarter ; and were 
confirmed, in part, by what I myself witnessed. I 
