“My first view of it,” says the great naturalist, “was about a fortnight after it had been chosen by the birds, and I arrived there nearly two hours before sunset.  Few pigeons were then to be seen, but a great many persons with horses and wagons and armed with guns, long poles, sulphur pots, pine pitch torches, etc., had already established encampments on the borders.  Two farmers had driven upwards of three hundred hogs a distance of more than a hundred miles to be fattened on slaughtered pigeons.  Here and there the people employed in plucking and salting what had already been secured were sitting in the midst of piles of birds.  Dung several inches thick covered the ground.  Many trees two feet in diameter were broken off at no great distance from the ground, and the branches of many of the tallest and largest had given way, as if the forest had been swept by a tornado.

“Not a pigeon had arrived at sundown.  Suddenly a general cry arose—­’Here they come!’ The noise they made, though still distant, reminded me of a hard gale at sea passing through the rigging of a close-reefed ship.  Thousands were soon knocked down by the pole-men.  The birds continued to pour in.  The fires were lighted and a magnificent as well as terrifying sight presented itself.  The pigeons pouring in alighted everywhere, one above another, until solid masses were formed on the branches all around.  Here and there the perches gave way with a crash, and falling destroyed hundreds beneath, forcing down the dense groups with which every stick was loaded; a scene of uproar and conflict.  I found it useless to speak or even to shout to those persons nearest me.  Even the reports of the guns were seldom heard, and I was made aware of the firing only by seeing the shooters reloading.  None dared venture within the line of devastation.  The hogs had been penned up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded being left for the next morning’s employment.  The pigeons were constantly coming in and it was after midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that arrived.  The uproar continued all night, and anxious to know how far the sound reached I sent off a man who, returning two hours after, informed me that he had heard it distinctly three miles distant.

[Illustration:  BAROMETER Invented by the author in his boyhood]

“Toward daylight the noise in some measure subsided; long before objects were distinguishable the pigeons began to move off in a direction quite different from that in which they had arrived the evening before, and at sunrise all that were able to fly had disappeared.  The howling of the wolves now reached our ears, and the foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, coons, opossums, and polecats were seen sneaking off, while eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied by a crowd of vultures, came to supplant them and enjoy a share of the spoil.

“Then the authors of all this devastation began their entry amongst the dead, the dying and mangled.  The pigeons were picked up and piled in heaps until each had as many as they could possible dispose of, when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder.