30 
THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
for the next morning’s employment. The Pigeons were constantly coming, 
and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of 
those that arrived. The uproar continued the whole night ; and as I was 
anxious to know to what distance the sound reached, I sent off a man, 
accustomed to perambulate the forest, who, returning two hours afterwards, 
informed me he had heard it distinctly when three miles distant from the 
spot. Towards the approach of day, the noise in some measure subsided: 
long before objects were distinguishable, the Pigeons began to move off in a 
direction quite different from that in which they had arrived the evening- 
before, and at sunrise all that were able to fly had disappeared. The 
bowlings of the wolves now reached our ears, and the foxes, lynxes, 
cougars, bears, racoons, opossums, and pole-cats were seen sneaking off, 
whilst eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied by a crowd of 
vultures, came to supplant them, and enjoy their share of the spoil. 
It was then that the authors of all this devastation began their entry 
amongst the dead, the dying, and the mangled. The Pigeons were picked 
up and piled in heaps, until each had as many as he could possibly dispose 
of, when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder. 
Persons unacquainted with these birds might naturally conclude that such 
dreadful havoc would soon put an end to the species. But I have satisfied 
myself, by long observation, that nothing but the gradual diminution of our 
forests can accomplish their decrease, as they not unfrequently quadruple 
their numbers yearly, and always at least double it. In 1805 I saw 
schooners loaded in bulk with Pigeons caught up the Hudson river, coming 
in to the wharf at New York, when the birds sold for a cent apiece. I 
knew a man in Pennsylvania, who caught and killed upwards of 500 dozens 
in a clap-net in one day, sweeping sometimes twenty dozens or more at a 
single haul. In the month of March, 1830, they were so abundant in the 
markets of New York, that piles of them met the eye in every direction. 
I have seen the Negroes at the United States Salines or Saltworks of 
Shawanee Town, wearied with killing Pigeons, as they alighted to drink 
the water issuing from the leading pipes, for weeks at a time ; and yet in 
1826, in Louisiana, I saw ‘congregated flocks of these birds as numerous as 
ever I had seen them before, during a residence of nearly thirty years in 
the United States. 
The breeding of the Wild Pigeons, and the places chosen for that 
purpose, are points of great interest. The time is not much influenced by 
season, and the place selected is where food is most plentiful and most 
attainable, and always at a convenient distance from water. Forest-trees 
of great height are those in which the Pigeons form their nests. Thither 
the countless myriads resort, and prepare to fulfil one of the great laws 
