t their numbers, we
may conceive what an immense amount must be consumed.

The female hatches only one bird at a time, in a nest slightly made of a
few twigs, loosely woven into a sort of platform. Upwards of one
hundred nests have been found in one tree, with a single egg in each of
them; but there are probably two or three broods in the season. In a
short time the young become very plump, and so fat, that they are
occasionally melted down for the sake of their fat alone. They choose
particular places for roosting--generally amid a grove of the oldest and
largest trees in the neighbourhood.

Wilson, Audubon, and other naturalists, give us vivid descriptions of
the enormous flights of these birds. Let us watch with Audubon in the
neighbourhood of one of their curious roosting-places. We now catch
sight of a flight of the birds moving with great steadiness and
rapidity, at a height out of gunshot, in several strata deep, and close
together. From right to left, far as the eye can reach, the breadth of
this vast procession extends, teeming everywhere, equally crowded. An
hour passes, and they rather increase in numbers and rapidity of flight.
The leaders of this vast body sometimes vary their course, now forming
a large band of more than a mile in diameter; those behind tracing the
exact route of their predecessors. Now they once more change their
direction--the column becoming an immense front, sweeping the heavens in
one vast and infinitely extended line. Suddenly a hawk makes a sweep on
a particular part of the column, when almost as quick as lightning that
part shoots downwards out of the common track; but soon again rising,
advances at the same rate as before.

We will now hurry on towards their breeding place, a forest on the banks
of the Green River in Kentucky, fully forty miles in length, and more
than three in width. In the neighbourhood are assembled a large number
of persons, with horses, waggons, guns, and ammunition; and a farmer has
brought three hundred hogs to be fattened on the refuse pigeons. As the
vast flight arrives at the spot, thousands are knocked down by men with
long poles. Some place pots of sulphur under the trees; others are
provided with torches of pine-knots; and the rest have guns. The birds
continue to pour in. The fires are lighted; and a magnificent, as well
as almost terrifying, sight presents itself. The pigeons arrive by
thousands, alighting everywhere, one above anot