. I have seen thousands of
them go through a beech wood, like a blue wave, picking up the sprouting
beechnuts. Those in the rear would be constantly flying over those in
front, so that the effect was that of a vast billow of mingled white and
blue and brown, rustling and murmuring as it went. One spring afternoon
vast flocks of them were passing south over our farm for hours, when
some of them began to pour down in the beech woods on the hill by the
roadside. A part of nearly every flock that streamed by would split off
and, with a downward wheel and rush, join those in the wood. Presently I
seized the old musket and ran out in the road, and then crept up behind
the wall, till only the width of the road separated me from the swarms
of fluttering pigeons. The air and the woods were literally blue with
them, and the ground seemed a yard deep with them. I pointed my gun
across the wall at the surging masses, and then sat there spellbound.
The sound of their wings and voices filled my ears, and their numbers
more than filled my eyes. Why I did not shoot was never very clear to
me. Maybe I thought the world was all turning to pigeons, as they still
came pouring down from the heavens, and I did not want to break the
spell. There I sat waiting, waiting, with my eye looking along the
gun-barrel, till, suddenly, the mass rose like an explosion, and with a
rush and a roar they were gone. Then I came to my senses and with keen
mortification realized what an opportunity I had let slip. Such a chance
never came again, though the last great flight of pigeons did not take
place till 1875.

When I was about ten or twelve, a spell was put upon me by a red fox
in a similar way. The baying of a hound upon the mountain had drawn
me there, armed with the same old musket. It was a chilly day in early
December. I took up my stand in the woods near what I thought might be
the runway, and waited. After a while I stood the butt of my gun upon
the ground, and held the barrel with my hand. Presently I heard a rustle
in the leaves, and there came a superb fox loping along past me, not
fifty feet away. He was evidently not aware of my presence, and, as for
me, I was aware of his presence alone. I forgot that I had a gun, that
here was the game I was in quest of, and that now was my chance to add
to my store of silver quarters. As the unsuspecting fox disappeared over
a knoll, again I came to my senses, and brought my gun to my shoulder;
but it was t