PASSENGER PIGEON.

This bird, the marvel of the whole Pigeon race, is beautiful in its colors, graceful in its form, and far more a child of wild nature than any other of the pigeons. The chief wonder, however, is in its multitudes; multitudes which no man can number; and when Alexander Wilson lays the mighty wand of the enchanter upon the Valley of the Mississippi, and conjures it up to the understanding and the feeling of the reader, with far more certain and more concentrated and striking effect than if it were painted on canvas, or modeled in wax, these pigeons form a feature in it which no one who knows can by possibility forget. It is probable that the multitudes may not be more numerous than those of the petrels in Bass's Strait, of which Captain Flinders—who also was a kind of Wilson in his way—gives a graphic description. But vast as the multitude of these was, it was only as a passing cloud to the captain; he was unable to follow it up; and even though he had, the flight of birds over the surface of the sea is tame and storyless, as compared with the movements of the unnumbered myriads of these pigeons in the great central valley of our continent. None of the names which have been bestowed upon this species are sufficiently, or at all, descriptive of it. Passenger, the English expression, and Migratoria, the Latin name, fall equally short, inasmuch as every known pigeon is to a greater or less extent migratory as well as this one. The "swarm" pigeon, the "flood" pigeon, or even the "deluge" pigeon would be a more appropriate appellation; for the weight of their numbers breaks down the forest with scarcely less havoc than if the stream of the Mississippi were poured upon it.

Birds so numerous demand both a wide pasture and powerful means of migration, and the Passengers are not stinted in either of those respects. In latitude, their pasture extends from the thirtieth to the sixtieth degree, which is upward of two thousand miles; and the extensive breadth in longitude cannot be estimated at less than fifteen hundred. Three millions of square miles is thus the extent of territory of which the Passenger pigeon has command; and that territory has its dimensions so situated as that the largest one is the line upon which the birds migrate.

In Canada their numbers are so great, and the ravages which they commit upon the cultivated ground so extensive, that instances are recorded in which the bishop has been seriously and earnestly implored to exorcise them "by bell, book, and candle"—to cast them out of the land by the same means used in days of yore against spirits troublesome to other individuals, men and women. But as the Passengers were material and not spiritual, the bishop had the good sense not to try the experiment upon them. At least, La Houton, who records the matter, is perfectly silent as to the success or failure of the proposition.

Both sexes are beautiful birds; but their value, in an economical point of view, is not, however, in any way equal to their numbers or their beauty. The flesh of the old ones is dark, dry, hard and unpalatable, as is very generally the case with birds which are much on the wing; but the young, or squabs, as they are called, are remarkably fat; and as in the places where the birds congregate, they may be obtained without much difficulty, this fat is obtained by melting them, and is used instead of lard. As they nestle in vast multitudes at the same place, their resting-places have many attractions for the birds of prey, which indiscriminately seize upon both the old and the young. The eggs, like those of most of the pigeon tribe, are usually two in number; but the number of birds at one nesting-place is so great that the young, when they begin to branch and feed, literally drive along the woods like a torrent. They feed upon the fruits which at this time they procure at the middle heights of the forests, and do not venture upon the open grounds. The nests are far more closely packed together than in any rookery, and are built one above another, from the height of twenty feet to the top of the tallest trees.

Wilson says that as soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left the nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants from all parts of the adjacent country came with wagons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery, near Shelbyville, Kentucky, forty miles long, and several miles in breadth. The noise in the woods was so great as to terrify their horses, and it was difficult for one person to hear another speak without bawling in his ear. The 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 descend to drink while on their aerial passage; those in the rear alighting on the backs of those who touched the ground first, in the same manner as the domestic pigeon, and pressing them beneath the surface of the water. Nuttall estimates the rapidity of their flight at about a mile a minute, and states among other data for this result, that there have been wild pigeons shot near New York, whose crops were filled with rice that must have been collected in the plantations of Georgia, and to digest which would not require more than twelve hours.

SHORE LARK.

Usually fat, much esteemed as food, and not uncommon in our markets, this beautiful bird may be seen in different seasons ranging from Hudson's Bay to Mexico, and from New England to the Rocky Mountains. They arrive in the Northern and Middle States late in the fall, and many remain throughout the winter. As the weather grows colder in the north, however, they become quite common in South Carolina and Georgia, frequenting the plains, commons and dry ground, keeping constantly upon the ground, and roving about in families under the guidance of the old birds, whose patriarchal care extends over all, to warn them by a plaintive call of the approach of danger, and instruct them by example how to avoid it. They roost somewhat in the same manner as partridges, in a close ring or circle, keeping each other warm, and abiding with indifference the frost and the storm. They migrate only when driven by want of food; this appears to consist of small round compressed black seeds, oats, buckwheat, &c., with a large proportion of gravel. Shore Lark and Sky Lark are the names by which they are usually known. They are said to sing well, rising in the air and warbling as they ascend, after the manner of the sky-lark of Europe.