THE AMERICAN WILD PIGEON.

AMMA," said a little boy, "what a number of things there are in the world!"

"A number of things," replied his mother, "do you mean living things? Yes, certainly there are; but what made you think of that just

now?"

"Because," he answered, "I have been trying for a long time to keep this window-pane clear of flies; I have caught twenty and put them out, but more and more keep flying in. Oh, really, what a number of things there are in the world! Mamma, don't you think it very odd that there should be so many more flies in the world than there are men and women?"

The mother, who was reading, merely smiled; some person who was present observed-"You must not call anything odd' that God ordains. If there were as many men and women in the world as there are

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flies and gnats in this one county of Yorkshire, they must all die, for there is not food enough for them to feed upon."

So ended this little colloquy; but who has not entertained this child's thought, and some time or other exclaimed, "What a number of things there are in the world!"

What a number, indeed! It has been calculated, that if a single pair of herrings could enjoy immunity from animals of prey, their progeny in twenty years, multiplying at the actual rate that herrings now do, would form a solid mass as large as this globe.

The salmon, when she swims out again to sea, after leaving her nursery in the river, is followed next spring by her 20,000 young; the wheat-fly becomes the parent in one season of 23,000 caterpillars; there are so many gudgeons in the Thames, that one angler will sometimes take from forty to fifty dozen in a day; and there are so many locusts in the great Arabian swarms, that when blown into the sea, and flung back again by the tide, their bodies have formed a bank fifty miles long and ten feet high. The shell beach of Herm (one of the smallest of the Channel Islands) extends, we read, about three quarters of a mile, and is one mass of shells unintermixed with either pebbles or sand. 'Dig with your arm deep as you may," said a writer who was familiar with this beach, "there is still nothing but shells, minute perfect shells and fragments of larger shells. The minute shells are extremely pretty, and may be gathered in millions.... I have spent a long summer's noon much to my mind in Herm, wandering on the shell beach, lying upon it, digging my hands an arm's length down, and sifting, and examining, and pocketing."

What an astonishing picture of the multitude of living things which could form such a beach is here presented! but we find it difficult to be so much surprised at the notion of multitude and minuteness, as

with multitude and magnitude. Major Hamilton Smith's description of the Springbok conveys a vivid picture of the numbers of this animal which exist in Central Africa,-numbers probably not exceeding the amount of a few swarms of gnats, or the four hundred thousand eggs of the prolific tench, but more formidable to man, and more impressive, as being able to cover his whole horizon to its utmost verge. "The springbok resides," says the Major, "on the plains of South Africa, to an unknown distance in the interior, in flocks, assembling in vast herds, and migrating from North to South, and back with the monsoon. These migrations, which are said to take place in their most numerous form only at the interval of several years, cause as complete a laying waste of the country as the visitation of the locust."

"The lion has been seen to migrate and walk in the midst of the compressed phalanx, with only as much room between him and his victims as the fears of those immediately around could procure by pressing outwards. The foremost of these vast columns are fat, and the rear exceedingly lean while the direction continues one way; but with the change of the monsoon, when they return towards the north, the rear become the leaders, and fatten in their turn, leaving the others to starve or be devoured by the numerous enemies who follow their march."

In Thompson's Travels in Africa, a letter from a settler is printed, in which he says:-"It is scarcely possible for a person passing over some of the extensive tracts of the interior, and admiring that elegant antelope, the springbok, thinly scattered over the plains, and bounding in playful innocence, to figure to himself that these ornaments of the desert can often become as destructive as the locusts themselves.

"The incredible numbers which sometimes pour in from the north during protracted droughts, distress the farmer inconceivably. Any attempt at numerical

computation would be vain, and by trying to come near the truth, the writer would subject himself, in the eyes of those who have no knowledge of the country, to a suspicion that he was availing himself of a traveller's assumed privilege. Yet it is well known in the interior, that on the approach of the tretbokken, as the migratory swarms are called, the grazier makes up his mind to look for pasture for his flocks elsewhere, and considers himself entirely dispossessed of his lands until heavy rains fall.

The immense desert tracts between Orange River and the colony of the Cape westward of the Zeekoe River, though destitute of permanent springs, and therefore uninhabitable by human beings for any length of time, are, notwithstanding, interspersed with stagnant pools, and vleys, or natural reservoirs of brackish water, which, however bad, satisfies the game. In these endless plains the springboks multiply undisturbed by the hunter (except when occasionally the Bosjesman destroys a few with his poisoned arrows), until the country literally swarms with them, when, perhaps one year out of four or five, a lasting drought leaves the pools exhausted and parches up naturally inclined to sterility. Thus want, principally of water, drives those myriads of animals either to the Orange River or to the Colony, where they intrude in the manner described. But when the thunder-clouds burst on the parched-up country, the swarms again retreat to their more sterile but peaceful and secluded plains."

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Mr. Pringle once passed through a migratory swarm scattered over the grassy plains near the Little Fish River. He could not profess to estimate their numbers he says they whitened, or rather speckled the country as far as the eye could reach. A gentleman riding with him, better acquainted than himself with such scenes, affirmed that within view there could not be less than 25,000 or 30,000.

More wonderful still, if possible, are the multitudes

of the pigeon tribe, one type of which heads this paper. Of the migratory pigeon of North America, Wilson gives the following extraordinary sketch :--"The most remarkable characteristic of these birds," he says, "is their associating together, both in their migrations and also during the period of incubation, in such prodigious numbers as almost to surpass belief, and which has no parallel among any other of the feathered tribes on the face of the earth, with which naturalists are acquainted.

"These migrations appear to be undertaken rather in quest of food than merely to avoid the cold of the climate, since we find them lingering in the northern regions around Hudson's Bay, so late as December, and since their appearance is so casual and irregular, sometimes not visiting certain districts for several years in any considerable numbers, while at other times they are innumerable. I have witnessed these migrations in the Gennessee county, often in Pennsylvania, and also in various parts of Virginia, with amazement; but all that I have seen of them were mere straggling parties, when compared with the congregated millions which I have since beheld in our Western forests, in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and the Indiana territory. These fertile and extensive regions abound with the nutritious beech-nut, which constitutes the chief food of the wild pigeon. seasons when these nuts are abundant, corresponding multitudes of pigeons may be confidently expected. It sometimes happens, that having consumed the whole produce of the beech-trees in an extensive district, they discover another at the distance of perhaps sixty or eighty miles, to which they regularly repair every morning, and return as regularly in the course of the day, or in the evening, to their place of general rendezvous, or, as it is usually called, the roosting-place. These roosting-places are always in the woods, and sometimes occupy a large extent of forest. When they have frequented one of these places for some time,

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