362 
BIRD-LIFE. 
tlie terrible fright it has undergone in making its first 
acquaintance with its new home. They calm its fears, 
however; and the little stranger is soon reconciled to the 
ever-heaving ocean, its sublime and bounteous mother, 
learning in a very short time to win its nourishment at 
her hand through its own exertions. 
Thus, one by one, the young birds leave the rock, 
which becomes daily more and more deserted, and, late 
on in the summer, would scarcely lead the spectator to 
believe that but a few weeks previous it had been tenanted 
by hundreds of thousands of happy creatures, who first 
saw light on its rugged ledges. 
One would be tempted to suppose that such myriads of 
birds as are assembled together at these breeding places 
could not be exceeded in any other part of the world, and 
yet, if we accept in good faith the accounts given by eye¬ 
witnesses, the breeding colonies of the Passenger Pigeon 
of America contain numbers far surpassing what we have 
already described. 
Wilson gives the following description of the breeding 
places of this bird:—“ When Passenger Pigeons have 
made use of a locality for any length of time it affords 
an extraordinary spectacle. The ground is covered to the 
depth of some inches with their dung; all grass and 
scrub is destroyed; the surface is strewn with large 
branches, which have given way under the weight of the 
masses of birds which roost on them; and the trees, over 
an expanse of some thousands of acres, are killed as 
completely as if girdled by the woodman’s axe. The 
traces of such wholesale devastation remain visible for 
years after, and no plant can live in these places. Not 
far from Shelbyville, in Kentucky, some years ago, there 
was one of these breeding places, covering a breadth 
