the numbers above mentioned, as seen in passing between
Frankfort and the Indian Territory. If we suppose this column to have
been one mile in breadth (and I believe it to have been much more), and
that it moved at the rate of one mile in a minute, four hours, the time
it continued passing, would make its whole length two hundred and forty
miles. Again, supposing that each square yard of this moving body
comprehended three pigeons, the square yards in the whole space,
multiplied by three, would give two thousand two hundred and thirty
millions two hundred and seventy-two thousand pigeons!--an almost
incredible multitude, and yet far below the actual amount. Computing
each of these to consume half a pint of mast (nuts, and other seeds of
trees) daily, the whole quantity, at this rate, would equal seventeen
millions four hundred and twenty-four thousand bushels per day! Heaven
has wisely and graciously given to these birds rapidity of flight, and a
disposition 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.

"The appearance of large detached flocks of these birds in the air, and
the various evolutions they display, are strikingly picturesque and
interesting. In descending the Ohio by myself, I often rested on my oars
to contemplate their aerial manoeuvres. A column of eight or ten miles
in length would appear from Kentucky high in air, steering across to
Indiana. The leaders of this great body would sometimes gradually vary
their course, till it formed a large bend of more than a mile in
diameter, those behind tracing the exact route of their predecessors.
This would continue sometimes long after both extremities were beyond
the reach of sight; so that the whole with its glittering undulations
marked a space on the face of the heavens resembling the windings of a
vast majestic river. When this bend became very great, the birds, as if
sensible of the unnecessarily circuitous route they were taking,
suddenly changed their direction, so that what was in column before
became an immense front, straightening all its indentures until it swept
the heavens in one vast and infinitely extended line. Other lesser
bodies also united with each other as they happened to approach, and
with such ease and elegance of evolution, forming new figures and
varying these as they united or