276 
THE PASSENGER, PIGEON. 
industry is in jeopardy, when visited by such a voracious 
multitude of pilferers, who, like the locusts of Egypt, desolate 
whole tracts of country by their unsparing ravages. 
Table XVII. (See page 17.) 
|| 
Order 4. Gallinaceous, (or Poultry tribe.) 
We now come to one of the most useful divisions of birds, j 
forming in their domesticated state no inconsiderable source I 
of profit to those who rear them for the purpose of sale. In 
the tables of classification, the Order comprises three tribes : 
— 1st, Pigeons ; 2nd, Fowls, or common Poultry ; and 3rd, 
the short-winged families of Ostriches, Cassowaries, &c., 
which by others have been classed amongst the Waders, in 
consequence of their length of legs. 
In this country, where Pigeons are, generally speaking, 
a domestic bird, few persons have an idea of their countless 
increase and abundance, when left to themselves, roaming 
over wide tracts, and following, almost without interruption, 
their natural habits. Even in our dovecots, however, their 
increase is often prodigious ; it having been found, that in 
the course of four years, nearly 15,000 have been produced 
from a single pair. Bearing this in mind, the reader will be 
better prepared to credit the startling accounts of the myriads 
of these birds, so often witnessed in North America, con- ‘ 
sisting of a particular species called the Passenger, or 
Migratory Pigeon, from their regular visits to certain 
districts, either for the purpose of feeding, or rearing their 
young. And though tens of thousands are destroyed, chiefly 
at their roost ing-places, the numbers seem rather to increase 
than diminish. Such multitudes had never before been 
witnessed as in 1829. Flocks extending miles in length, 
were, for days together, seen passing over the hills during 
the Spring, from the southward ; the mighty mass collecting 
