Finding, however, that this was next to
impossible, and feeling unable to record the flocks as they
multiplied constantly, I arose, and counting the dots already put
down, discovered that one hundred and sixty-three had been made in
twenty-one minutes.
I travelled on, and still met more flocks the farther I went. The
air was literally filled with pigeons. The light of noonday became
dim as during an eclipse. The continued buzz of wings over me had a
tendency to incline my senses to repose.
Whilst waiting for my 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 forest directly on the east of me. Yet not
a single bird would alight, for not a nut or acorn was that year to
be seen in the neighborhood.
The pigeons flew so high that different trials to reach them with a
capital rifle proved ineffectual, and not even the report disturbed
them in the least. A black hawk now appeared in their rear. At once
like a torrent, and with a thunder-like noise, they formed
themselves into almost a solid, compact mass, all pressing towards
the centre.
In such a solid body, they zigzagged to escape the murderous falcon,
now down close over the earth sweeping with inconceivable velocity,
then ascending perpendicularly like a vast monument, and, when high
up, wheeling and twisting within their continuous lines, resembling
the coils of a gigantic serpent.
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