THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
87 
and inviting, that the wife of the person who shot 
it, boiled and ate them, as a delicate dish of greens, 
for supper. The consumption of grains of wheat 
by a common House-Pigeon, we found to amount to 
two ounces in twenty-four hours, and in the following 
twenty-four hours, when fed with peas, it consumed 
about the same weight. Hence we may easily form 
some idea of the enormous consumption of a large 
flight. Supposing one Pigeon to feed regularly at 
the above rate, its annual average supply would 
amount to about fifty pounds in weight, — a serious 
consumption of grain when large numbers are con- 
cerned. The following calculation, made by a very 
accurate observer, places the subject, as far as relates 
to the American Wood-pigeons, in a still more 
striking point of view. He saw a column of Pigeons 
due mile in breadth, moving at the rate of one mile 
a minute, which, as it was four hours in passing, 
made its whole length 240 miles. He then calcu- 
lated that each square yard of this moving body con- 
tained three Pigeons, which thus gave two thousand, 
two hundred and thirty millions, two hundred and 
seventy-two thousand Pigeons ! and yet this he con- 
sidered to be less than the real number. Computing 
each of these to consume half a pint of seed daily, 
the whole quantity would equal seventeen millions, 
four hundred and twenty-four thousand bushels per 
day. Heaven, he adds, has wisely and graciously 
given to these birds, rapidity of flight, and a dis- 
position to range over vast uncultivated tracts of 
the earth, otherwise they must have perished in the 
districts where they resided, or devoured the whole 
productions of agriculture, as well as those of the 
forests. 
