206 
PASSENGER PIGEON. 
twigs, carelessly put together, and with so little concavity, 
that the young one, when half grown, can easily be seen from 
below. The eggs are pure white. Great numbers of Hawks, 
and sometimes the Bald Eagle himself, hover about those 
breeding places, and seize the old or the young from the nest 
amidst the rising multitudes, and with the most daring 
effrontery. The young, when beginning to fly, confine 
themselves to the under part of the tall woods where there is 
no brush, and where nuts and acorns are abundant, searching 
among the leaves for mast, and appear like a prodigious torrent 
rolling along through the woods, every one striving to be in 
the front. Vast numbers of them are shot while in this 
situation. A person told me, that he once rode furiously into 
one of these rolling multitudes, and picked up thirteen Pigeons, 
which had been trampled to death by his horse’s feet. In a 
few minutes they will beat the whole nuts from a tree with 
their wings, while all is a scramble, both above and below, 
for the same. They have the same cooing notes common to 
domestic Pigeons, but much less of their gesticulations. In 
some flocks you will find nothing but young ones, which are 
easily distinguishable by their motley dress. In others, they 
will be mostly females ; and again, great multitudes of males, 
with few or no females. I cannot account for this in any other 
way than that, during the time of incubation, the males are 
exclusively engaged in procuring food, both for themselves 
and their mates ; and the young, being unable yet to undertake 
these extensive excursions, associate together accordingly. 
But, even in winter, I know of several species of birds who 
separate in this manner, particularly the Red-winged Starling, 
among whom thousands of old males may be found, with few 
or no young or females along with them. 
Stragglers from these immense armies settle in almost 
every part of the country, particularly among the beech 
woods, and in the pine and hemlock woods of the eastern and 
northern parts of the continent. Mr Pennant informs us, 
that they breed near Moose Fort at Hudson’s Bay, in N. lat. 
