ground was strewed with broken limbs of trees, eggs, and
young squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and on
which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, buzzards and eagles were
sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their
nests at pleasure, while from twenty feet upward to the tops of the
trees, the view through the woods presented a perpetual tumult of
crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons, their wings roaring
like thunder, mingled with the frequent crash of falling timber, for
now the axe-men were at work cutting down those trees which seemed to
be most crowded with nests, and seemed to fell them in such a manner
that, in their descent, they might bring down several others, by which
means the falling of one large tree sometimes produced two hundred
squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and almost one mass
of fat. On some single trees upward of one hundred nests were found.
It was dangerous to walk under these flying and fluttering millions,
from the frequent fall of large branches, broken down by the weight of
the multitudes above, and which in their descent often destroyed
numbers of the birds themselves. This is a scene to which we are aware
of no parallel in the nesting-places of the feathered tribes. In the
select places where the birds only roost for the night, the
congregating, though not permanent, is often as great and destructive
to the forest. The native Indians rejoice in a breeding or a
roosting-place of the migratory pigeon, as one which shall supply them
with an unbounded quantity of provisions, in the quality of which they
are not particularly chary. Nor are these roosting-places attractive
to the Indians only, for the settlers near them also pay them
nocturnal visits. They come with guns, clubs, pots of suffocating
materials, and every other means of destruction that can well be
imagined to be within their command, and procure immense quantities of
the birds in a very short time. These they stuff into sacks and carry
home on their horses.

The flocks being less abundant in the Atlantic States, the gun, decoy
and net are brought into operation against them, and very considerable
numbers of them are taken. In some seasons they may be purchased in
our markets for one dollar a hundred, and flocks have been known to
occupy two hours in passing, in New Jersey and the adjoining States.
Many thousands are drowned on the edges of the ponds to which they
d