Page:Darwinism by Alfred Wallace 1889.djvu/53

II American naturalist, Alexander Wilson, will be read with interest:—

"Not far from Shelbyville, in the State of Kentucky, about five years ago, there was one of these breeding-places, which stretched through the woods in nearly a north and south direction, was several miles in breadth, and was said to be upwards of 40 miles in extent. In this tract almost every tree was furnished with nests wherever the branches could accommodate them. The pigeons made their first appearance there about the 10th of April, and left it altogether with their young before the 25th of May. 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 waggons, axes, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery. Several of them informed me that the noise was so great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to hear another 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 the nests at pleasure; while, from 20 feet upwards to the top 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 axemen were at work cutting down those trees that seemed most crowded with nests, and contrived 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 200 squabs little inferior in size to the old birds, and almost one heap of fat. On some single trees upwards of a hundred nests were found, each containing one squab only; a circumstance in the history of the bird not generally known to naturalists. It was dangerous to walk