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PASSENGER PIGEON. 
The wild Pigeon of the United States inhabits a wide and 
extensive region of North America, on this side of the great 
Stony Mountains, beyond which, to the westward, I have 
not heard of their being seen. According to Mr Hutchins, 
miles. The Pigeons were still passing in undiminished numbers, and continued 
to do so for three days in succession. The people were all in arms. The 
banks of the Ohio were crowded with men and boys, incessantly shooting at 
the pilgrims, which there flew lower as they passed the river. Multitudes 
were thus destroyed. For a week, or more, the population fed on no other 
flesh than that of Pigeons. The atmosphere, during this time, was strongly 
impregnated with the peculiar odour which emanates from the species.” In 
estimating the number of these mighty flocks," and the food consumed by them 
daily, he adds, — “ Let us take a column of one mile in breadth, which is far 
below the average size, and suppose it passing over us, at the rate of one mile 
per minute. This will give us a parallelogram of 180 miles by 1, covering 
180 square miles; and, allowing two Pigeons to the square yard, we have 
one billion one hundred and fifteen millions one hundred and thirty-six thousand 
Pigeons in one flock : and, as every Pigeon consumes fully half a pint per 
day, the quantity required to feed such a flock, must be eight millions seven 
hundred and twelve thousand bushels per day.” 
The accounts of their roosting places are as remarkable : — 
“ Let us now, kind reader, inspect their place of nightly rendezvous : — - 
It was, as is always the case, in a portion of the forest where the trees 
were of great magnitude, and where there was little underwood. I rode 
through it upwards of forty miles, and, crossing it at different parts, found its 
average breadth to be rather more than three miles. Few Pigeons were to be 
seen before sunset ; but a great number of persons, with horses and wagons, 
guns and ammunition, had already established encampments on the borders. 
Two farmers from the vicinity of Russelsville, distant more than a hundred 
miles, had driven upwards of three hundred hogs, to be fattened on the 
Pigeons which were to be slaughtered. Here and there, the people employed 
in plucking and salting what had already been procured, were seen sitting in 
the midst of large piles of these birds. The dung lay several inches deep, 
covering the whole extent of the roosting place, like a bed of snow. Many 
trees, two feet in diameter, I observed, were broken off at no great distance 
from the ground; and the branches of many of the largest and tallest had 
given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado. Every thing proved 
to me, that the number of birds resorting to this part of the forest, must be 
immense beyond conception. As the period of their arrival approached, their 
foes anxiously prepared to seize them. Some were furnished with iron pots, 
containing sulphur, others with torches of pine-knots, many with poles, and 
the rest with guns. The sun was lost to our view ; yet not a Pigeon had 
