PASSENGER PIGEON. 
7 
If we suppose this column tohave been one mile in breadth (and 
I believe it to have been much more, ) and that it moved at the 
rate of one mile in a minute; four hours, the time it continued 
passing, would make its whole length two hundred and forty- 
miles. Again supposing that each square yard of this moving 
body comprehended three Pigeons, the square yards in the 
whole space, multiplied by three, would give two thousand two 
hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and seventy-two 
thousand pigeons! An almost inconceivable multitude, and yet 
probably far below the actual amount. Computing each of these 
to consume half a pint of mast daily, the whole quantity at this 
rate, would equal seventeen millions four hundred and twenty- 
four thousand bushels per day ! Pleaven has wisely and graci- 
ously given to these birds rapidity of flight, and a disposition to 
range over vast uncultivated tracts of the earth; otherwise they 
must have perished in the districts where they resided, or de- 
voured up the whole productions of agriculture, as well as 
those of the forests. 
A few observations on the mode of flight of these birds must 
not be omitted. The appearance of large detached bodies of 
them in the air, and the various evolutions they display, are 
strikingly picturesque and interesting. In descending the Ohio, 
by myself, in the month of February, I often rested on my oars 
to contemplate their aerial manoeuvres. A column, eight or ten 
miles in length, would appear from Kentucky, high in air, steer- 
ing across to Indiana. The leaders of this great body would 
sometimes gradually vary their course, until it formed a large 
bend of more than a mile in diameter, those behind tracing the 
exact route of their predecessors. This would continue some- 
times long after both extremities were beyond the reach of 
sight, so that the whole, with its glittery undulations, marked 
a space on the face of the heavens resembling the windings of 
a vast and majestic river. When this bend became very great, 
the birds, as if sensible of tbe unnecessary circuitous course they 
were taking, suddenly changed their direction, so that what was 
in column before became an immense front, straightening all its 
