PASSENGER PIGEON, Ectopistes Inigratorims, a species of pigeon, native of North America, and particularly interesting from the miptvelons numbers of which its flocks are often composed. The genus to which it belongs has, like the turtle doves, a bill more slender than the ordinary pigeons, notched, and with a tumid fleshy covering above at the base; the head is small in proportion to the body, the legs are short and strong, the feet naked, the tail either rounded or wedge-shaped, the wings long and pointed. The passenger pigeon, generally known in North America as the wild pigeon, has a long wedge-shaped tail; the whole length being from 15 to 17 in., of which the tail occupies nearly one half. It is a beautiful bird, of very graceful form and finely colored •plurnage. 'rite plumage of the female is duller than that of the male.—The passenger pigeon is found in almost all parts of North America, from the gulf of Mexico to the Arctic regions. It is not, properly speaking, a bird of passage: its migrations being npparently altogether consequent on the failure of the supplies of food in one locality, and the necessity of seeking it in another, and not connected with the breeding season or the season of the year. Its power of flight is very great, and it is supposail to Is able to sustain a long flight rat the rate of 60 m. an hour. Passenger pigeons hare been killed in the neighborhood of New York, with their crops full of rice, which they must have collected in the. fields of Carolina or Georgia not- matkv hours before. It is not, therefore, very wonderful that wanderers of this species should occasionally appear in Britain and in other regions fat' from their native abode. The nest of the passenger pigeon in the American forests generally consists of a few dry twigs placed in a fork of the branches of a tree, and containing two eggs, sometimes only one egg. They breed two or three times lira season. In the backwoods, vast numbers of pigeons building in one breeding place, many nests, sometimes 100 or more, are often to be seen in one tree. These great
breeding-places extend• over a tract of forest, sometimes not less than 40 in. in length; but in the more cultivated parts of the United States the passenger pigeon builds singly and not in communities. The numbers of birds forming the communities of the western forests surpass calculation. Flocks of them are to be seen flying at a great height in dense columns, 8 or 10 in. long; and there is reason to suppose, from the rapidity of their flight, and the number of hours taken by a column in passing a particular spot, that in some of their great migrations the column, a mile broach, is more than 150 tn. loin Their roosting-places, as well as their breeding-places, are of pro digious maetnitiale.. The graphic descriptions of Wilson and Audubon are too long to be quoted; but there is perhaps nothing of the kind so wonderful in relation to any species of bird. The noise of wings and of cooing voices is as loud as thunder, and is heard at the distance of miles. It drowns the report of guns. The multi tudes which settle on trees, break down great branches by their weight, so that it is dangerous to pass beneath. They crowd together, alighting one upon another, till they form solid masses like hogsheads, and great numbers are killed when the branches break, The inhabitants of the neighboring country assemble, shoot them, knock them down with poles, stifle them by means of pots of burning sulphur, cut down trees in order to bring them in great numbers to the ground, eat them, salt them, and bring their bogs to fatten on them. Wolves, foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, raccoons, opossums, polecats, eagles, Imwlis, and vultures all congregate to share the spoil. The flesh of the passenger pigeon is of a dark color, but tolerably p]ensaut. That of young birds is much esteemed. The nestlings aro iu general extremely fat, and are sometimes melted down for the sake of their fat alone. The food of the passenger pigeon consists chiefly of beech-umst and acorns, but it readily eats almost any kind of nut, berry, or seed.