Account of the WILD PIGEON of America.

[By M. Audebert.]

The immense flocks of these birds, which are observed in autumn, almost surpass belief; and yet the account here given is too well authenticated to be disputed, being communicated by a gentleman who has passed five and twenty years of his life among the wilds and woods of North America, in pursuit of the interesting study of Ornithology: the results of his useful labours will shortly, we understand, be submitted to the British public, under the immediate patronage of HIS MAJESTY.

Before sunset, says M. Audebert, I reached Louisville, distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles, where the pigeons were still passing, and this continued for three days in succession. The people were indeed all up in arms, and shooting on all sides at the passing flocks. The banks of the river were crowded with men and children, for here the pigeons flew rather low as they passed the Ohio. This gave a fair opportunity to destroy them in great numbers. For a week or more, the population spoke of nothing but pigeons, and fed on no other flesh but that of pigeons. The whole atmosphere, during this time, was strongly impregnated with the smell appertaining to their species,

It may not, perhaps, be out of place to attempt an estimate of the number of pigeons contained in one of these mighty flocks, and the quantity of food daily consumed by its members. The inquiry will show the astonishing bounty of the Creator in his works, and how universally this bounty has been granted to every living thing on that vast continent of America. We shall take, for example, a column of one mile in breadth, which is far below the average size, and suppose it passing over us without interruption for three hours, at the rate of one mile per minute. This will give us a parallelogram of one hundred and eighty miles by one, covering one hundred and

eighty square miles; and allowing two pigeons to the square yard, we have one billion, one hundred and fifteen millions, one hundred and thirty-six thousand pigeons in one flock; and as every pigeon consumes full half a pint of food per day, the quantity must be eight millions, seven hundred and twelve thousand bushels per day, which is required to feed such a flock.

As soon as these birds discover a sufficiency of food to entice them to alight, they fly round in circles, reviewing the country below, and, at this time, exhibit their phalanx in all the beauties of their plumage; now displaying a large glistening sheet of bright azure, by exposing their backs to view, and, suddenly veering, they exhibit a mass of rich deep purple. They then pass lower over the woods, and are lost among the foliage for a moment, but they reappear as suddenly above; after which they alight, and, as if affrighted, the whole again take to wing with a roar equal to loud thunder, and wander swiftly through the forest to see if danger is near. Impelling hunger, however, soon brings them all to the ground, and then they are seen industriously throwing up the fallen leaves to seek for the last beech-rut or acorn; the rear ranks continually rising, passing over, and alighting in front in such quick succession, that the whole still bears the appearance of being on the wing. The quantity of ground thus swept up, or, to use a French expression, moissonnée, is astonishing; and so clean is the work, that gleaners never find it worth their while to follow where the pigeons have been. On such occasions, when the woods are thus filled with them, they are killed in immense numbers, yet without any apparent diminution. During the middle of the day, after their repast is finished, the whole settle on the trees to enjoy rest, and digest their food; but as the sun sinks in the horizon, they depart en. masse for the roosting-place, not unfrequently hundreds of miles off, as has been ascertained by per

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sons keeping account of their arrival and of their departure from their curious roosting-places, to which I must now conduct the reader.

To one of those general nightly rendezvous, not far from the banks of Green River in Kentucky, I paid repeated visits. It was, as is almost always the case, pitched in a portion of the forest where the trees were of great magnitude of growth, but with little underwood. I rode through it lengthwise upwards of forty miles, and crossed it in different parts, ascertaining its width to be rather more than three miles. My first view of it was about a fortnight subsequent to the period when they had chosen this spot, and I arrived there nearly two hours before the setting of the sun. Few pigeons were then to be seen, but a great number of persons with horses and waggons, guns, and ammunition, had already established different camps on the borders. Two farmers from the neighbourhood of Russelsville, distant more than one hundred miles, had driven upwards of three hundred hogs to be fattened on pigeon meat; and here and there the people, employed in picking and salting what had already been procured, were seen sitting in the centre of large piles of those birds, all proving to me that the number resorting there at night must be immense, and probably consisting of all those then feeding in Indiana, some distance beyond Jeffersonville, and not less than one hundred and fifty miles off. The dung of the birds was several inches deep, covering the whole extent of the roosting-place like a bed of snow. Many trees two feet in diameter I observed were broken at no great distance from the ground, and the branches of many of the largest and tallest so much so, that the desolation already exhibited equalled that performed by a furious tornado. As the time elapsed, I saw each of the anxious persons about to prepare for action; some with sulphur in iron pots, others with torches of pine knots, many with poles, and the rest with guns double and treble

charged. The sun was lost to our view, yet not a pigeon had yet arrived,-but all of a sudden I heard a cry of Here they come! The noise which they made, though distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea, passing through the rigging of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds arrived, and passed over me, I felt a current of air that surprised me. Thousands were soon knocked down by the polemen. The current of birds, however, still kept increasing. The fires were lighted, and a most magnificent, as well as wonderful and terrifying sight was before me. The pigeons, coming in by millions, alighted every where one on the top of another, until masses of them, resembling hanging swarms of bees as large as hogsheads, were formed on every tree in all directions. These heavy clusters were seen to give way, as the supporting branches, breaking down with a crash, came to the ground, killing hundreds of those which obstructed their fall, forcing down other equally large and heavy groups, and rendering the whole a scene of uproar and of distressing confusion. I found it quite useless to speak, or even to shout, to those persons nearest me. The reports even of the different guns were seldom heard, and I knew only of their going off by seeing the owners reload them.

No person dared venture within the line of devastation, and the hogs had been penned up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded sufferers being left for the next morning's operation. Still the pigeons were constantly coming, and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued, however, the whole night; and as I was anxious to know to what distance the sound reached, I sent off a man, who, by his habits in the woods, was able to tell me, two hours afterwards, that at three miles he heard it distinctly. Towards the approach of day the noise rather subsided; but long ere objects were at all dis

tinguishable, the pigeons began to move off in a direction quite different from that in which they arrived the day before, and at sunrise none that were able to fly remained. The howlings of the wolves now reached our ears, and the foxes, the lynx, the cougars, bears, raccoons, opossums, and polecats, were seen sneaking off the spot; whilst the eagles and hawks of different species, supported by a horde of buzzards and carrion crows, came to supplant them, and reap the benefits of this night of destruction. It was then that I, and all those present, began our entry among the dead and wounded sufferers. They were picked up in great numbers, until each had so many as could possibly be disposed of; and afterwards the hogs and dogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.-Brewster's Journal of Science.

The following marine pictures we introduce into our Diary as an agreeable relaxation for those idle personages who may happen to find themselves at the idlest of all sojourns, a watering place on the English coast.

To a SEA-WEED, picked up after a STORM.
Exotic!-from the soil no tiller ploughs,

Save the rude surge;-fresh stripling from a grove,
Above whose tops the wild sea monsters rove;
-Have not the genii harboured in thy boughs,
Thou filmy piece of wonder!-have not those
Who still the tempest for thy rescue strove,
And stranded thee thus fair, the might to prove
Of spirits, that the caves of ocean house?

How else, from capture of the giant-spray,
Hurt-free escapest thou, slight ocean-flower?

-As if Arachne wove, thus faultless lay
The full-developed forms of fairy-bower;

-Who that beholds thee thus, nor with dismay
Recalls thee struggling thro' the storm's dark hour1!

1 Poems and Translations from Schiller.