THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
85 
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 in an 
encampment in a forest, upwards of nine miles in 
length, and four in breadth, in which there was 
scarcely a tree, large or small, which was not loaded 
with their nests. In those parts of England fre- 
quented by our common Wood-Pigeons, the well- 
known rustling and rattling of a host of wings, as a 
cloud of them rise from some favourite haunt in 
a wood, will not easily be forgotten ; but this clat- 
tering of flapping pinions, is nothing when com- 
pared to the uprising of these American flights, 
which is described as an absolute and constant 
roaring, so loud and overpowering, that persons on 
