PASSENGER PIGEON. 
203 
multitudes consume is a serious loss to the bears, pigs, squirrels, 
and other dependants on the fruits of the forest. I have taken, 
from the crop of a single Wild Pigeon, a good handful of the 
kernels of beech nuts, intermixed with acorns and chestnuts. 
To form a rough estimate of the daily consumption of one of 
these immense flocks, let us first attempt to calculate the 
numbers of that above mentioned, as seen in passing between 
Frankfort and the Indiana territory : If we suppose this column 
to have 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 com- 
prehended 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 pro- 
bably 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 ! Heaven has wisely 
and graciously 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 devoured 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, steering 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 
