.

2. In the autumn of 1813 I left my house at Henderson, on the banks of the
Ohio, on my way to Louisville. In passing over the Barrens, a few miles
beyond Hardinsburgh, I observed the pigeons flying, from northeast to
southwest, in greater numbers than I thought I had ever seen them before,
and feeling an inclination to count the flocks that might pass within the
reach of my eye in one hour, I dismounted, seated myself on an eminence,
and began to mark with my pencil, making a dot for every flock that
passed.

3. In a short time, finding the task which I had undertaken impracticable,
as the birds poured in in countless multitudes, I rose, and, counting the
dots then put down, found that one hundred and sixty-three had been made
in twenty-one minutes. I traveled on, and still met more the farther I
proceeded. The air was literally filled with pigeons; the light of noonday
was obscured as by an eclipse; and the continued buzz of wings had a
tendency to lull my senses to repose.

4. Whilst waiting for dinner at Young's inn, at the confluence of Salt
River with the Ohio, I saw, at my leisure, immense legions still going by,
with a front reaching far beyond the Ohio on the west, and the beech wood
forests directly on the east of me. Not a single bird alighted, for not a
nut or acorn was that year to be seen in the neighborhood. They
consequently flew so high that different trials to reach them with a
capital rifle proved ineffectual; nor did the reports disturb them in the
least.

5. I can not describe to you the extreme beauty of their aerial evolutions
when a hawk chanced to press upon the rear of a flock. At once, like a
torrent, and with a noise like thunder, they rushed into a compact mass,
pressing upon each other towards the center. In these almost solid masses,
they darted forward in undulating and angular lines, descended and swept
close over the earth with inconceivable velocity, mounted perpendicularly
so as to resemble a vast column, and, when high, were seen wheeling and
twisting within their continued lines, which then resembled the coils of a
gigantic serpent.

6. As soon as the pigeons discover a sufficiency of food to entice them to
alight, they fly round in circles, reviewing the country below. During
their evolutions, on such occasions, the dense mass which they form
exhibits a beautiful appearance, as it changes its direction, now
displaying a glistening sheet of azure, when the backs of the birds