BREEDING COLONIES. 
365 
the eye could reach, extended this immeasurable and, as 
it appeared, uniformly dense and mighty flock. Out of 
curiosity I sat myself down, watch in hand, to time the 
duration of this spectacle. It was half-past 1 p.m. when 
I began, and I watched the flight for over half an hour, 
during which time it seemed to increase rather than 
to diminish in numbers and rapidity, after which I was 
forced to pursue my journey, so as to reach Frankfort 
before nightfall. Towards four o’clock I passed the 
river Kentucky at that place, and still the living stream 
kept passing overhead, while it seemed as broad and 
compact as ever. At a much later hour the flock divided 
into separate strips; and six or eight minutes later these 
again broke up into lesser bands: they all, however, 
pursued their flight in the same direction. It was past 
six o’clock before the whole mass had disappeared. The 
great breadth of the flight led me to suppose that of the 
breeding place to be somewhat similar; and, in truth, 
several persons whose testimony I could believe, and who 
had not long since visited the colony, assured me that it 
was several English miles in width. 
“If,” concludes Wilson, “ I only estimate the breadth 
of this flight at a mile, although I am quite positive that 
it was more, and assume that it travelled at the rate of a 
mile a minute, I then obtain, in a duration of four hours, 
a length of 240 miles. If I further calculate three birds 
to every square yard, one with another, I obtain for the 
entire flock a total of 2,230,272,000 Pigeons,—an appa¬ 
rently incredible number, though, in reality, probably far 
below the mark. Let us, then, assume that each bird 
daily consumes only half a pint of beech-mast, or other 
grain, we have a total consumption of 17,424,000 bushels 
per diem.” 
