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 come simultaneously into view, and anon suddenly presenting a mass of rich, deep purple.

7.  They then pass lower, over the woods, and for a moment are lost among the foliage, but again emerge, and are seen gliding aloft.  They now alight; but the next moment, as if suddenly alarmed, they take to wing, producing by the flappings of their wings a noise like the roar of distant thunder, and sweep through the forests to see if danger is near.  Hunger, however, soon brings them to the ground.

8.  When alighted, they are seen industriously throwing up the withered leaves in quest of the fallen mast.  The rear ranks are continually rising, passing over the main body, and alighting in front, in such rapid succession, that the whole flock seems still on wing.  The quantity of ground thus swept is astonishing; and so completely has it been cleared that the gleaner who might follow in their rear would find his labor completely lost.