As James Fenimore Cooper Saw It
One of the most graphic descriptions ever written of a pigeon flight
and slaughter is to be found in Cooper's novel, "The Pioneers," from
which I make the following extracts:
"See, cousin Bess! see, Duke, the pigeon-roosts of the south have
broken up! They are growing more thick every instant. Here is a flock
that the eye cannot see the end of. There is food enough in it to
keep the army of Xerxes for a month and feathers enough to make beds
for the whole country.... The reports of the firearms became rapid,
whole volleys rising from the plain, as flocks of more than ordinary
numbers darted over the opening, shadowing the field like a cloud;
and then the light smoke of a single piece would issue from among the
leafless bushes on the mountain, as death was hurled on the retreat of
the affrighted birds, who were rising from a volley, in a vain effort
to escape. Arrows and missiles of every kind were in the midst of the
flocks; and so numerous were the birds, and so low did they take their
flight, that even long poles, in the hands of those on the sides of the
mountain, were used to strike them to the earth.... So prodigious was
the number of the birds, that the scattering fire of the guns, with
the hurtling missiles, and the cries of the boys, had no other effect
than to break off small flocks from the immense masses that continued
to dart along the valley, as if the whole of the feathered tribe were
pouring through that one pass. None pretended to collect the game,
which lay scattered over the fields in such profusion as to cover the
very ground with the fluttering victims."
The slaughter described finally ended with a grand finale when an old
swivel gun was "loaded with handsful of bird-shot," and fired into the
mass of pigeons with such fatal effect that there were birds enough
killed and wounded on the ground to feed the whole settlement.
The following description is from "The Chainbearer," also by J.
Fenimore Cooper. The region of which he writes is in Central New York.
"I scarce know how to describe the remarkable scene. As we drew near to
the summit of the hill, pigeons began to be seen fluttering among the
branches over our heads, as individuals are met along the roads that
lead into the suburbs of a large town. We had probably seen a thousand
birds glancing around among the trees, before we came in view of the
roost itself. The numbers increased as we drew nearer, and presently
the forest was alive with them.
"The fluttering was incessant, and often startling as we passed ahead,
our march producing a movement in the living crowd, that really became
confounding. Every tree was literally covered with nests, many having
at least a thousand of these frail tenements on their branches, and
shaded by the leaves. They often touched each other, a wonderful degree
of order prevailing among the hundreds of thousands of families that
were here assembled.
"The place had the odor of a fowl-house, and squabs just fledged
sufficiently to trust themselves in short flights, were fluttering
around us in all directions, in tens of thousands. To these were to
be added the parents of the young race endeavoring to protect them
and guide them in a way to escape harm. Although the birds rose as
we approached, and the woods just around us seemed fairly alive with
pigeons, our presence produced no general commotion; every one of
the feathered throng appearing to be so much occupied with its own
concerns, as to take little heed of the visit of a party of strangers,
though of a race usually so formidable to their own.
"The masses moved before us precisely as a crowd of human beings yields
to a pressure or a danger on any given point; the vacuum created by its
passage filling in its rear as the water of the ocean flows into the
track of the keel.
"The effect on most of us was confounding, and I can only compare the
sensation produced on myself by the extraordinary tumult to that a
man experiences at finding himself suddenly placed in the midst of an
excited throng of human beings. The unnatural disregard of our persons
manifested by the birds greatly heightened the effect, and caused me
to feel as if some unearthly influence reigned in the place. It was
strange, indeed, to be in a mob of the feathered race, that scarce
exhibited a consciousness of one's presence. The pigeons seemed a world
of themselves, and too much occupied with their own concerns to take
heed of matters that lay beyond them.
"Not one of our party spoke for several minutes. Astonishment seemed
to hold us all tongue-tied, and we moved slowly forward into the
fluttering throng, silent, absorbed, and full of admiration of the
works of the Creator. It was not easy to hear each others' voices when
we did speak, the incessant fluttering of wings filling the air. Nor
were the birds silent in other respects.
"The pigeon is not a noisy creature, but a million crowded together on
the summit of one hill, occupying a space of less than a mile square,
did not leave the forest in its ordinary impressive stillness. As we
advanced, I offered my arm, almost unconsciously again to Dus, and
she took it with the same abstracted manner as that in which it had
been held forth for her acceptance. In this relation to each other, we
continued to follow the grave-looking Onondago, as he moved, still
deeper and deeper, into the midst of the fluttering tumult.
* * * * *
"While standing wondering at the extraordinary scene around us, a noise
was heard rising above that of the incessant fluttering which I can
only liken to that of the trampling of thousands of horses on a beaten
road. This noise at first sounded distant, but it increased rapidly
in proximity and power, until it came rolling in upon us, among the
tree-tops, like a crash of thunder. The air was suddenly darkened,
and the place where we stood as somber as a dusky twilight. At the
same instant, all the pigeons near us, that had been on their nests,
appeared to fall out of them, and the space immediately above our heads
was at once filled with birds.
"Chaos itself could hardly have represented greater confusion, or a
greater uproar. As for the birds, they now seemed to disregard our
presence entirely; possibly they could not see us on account of their
own numbers, for they fluttered in between Dus and myself, hitting us
with their wings, and at times appearing as if about to bury us in
avalanches of pigeons. Each of us caught one at least in our hands,
while Chainbearer and the Indian took them in some numbers, letting one
prisoner go as another was taken. In a word, we seemed to be in a world
of pigeons. This part of the scene may have lasted a minute, when the
space around us was suddenly cleared, the birds glancing upward among
the branches of the trees, disappearing among the foliage. All this was
the effect produced by the return of the female birds, which had been
off at a distance, some twenty miles at least, to feed on beechnuts,
and which now assumed the places of the males on the nests; the latter
taking a flight to get their meal in their turn.
"I have since had the curiosity to make a sort of an estimate of the
number of the birds that must have come in upon the roost, in that, to
us, memorable moment. Such a calculation, as a matter of course, must
be very vague, though one may get certain principles by estimating
the size of a flock by the known rapidity of the flight, and other
similar means; and I remember that Frank Malbone and myself supposed
that a million of birds must have come in on that return, and as many
departed! As the pigeon is a very voracious bird, the question is apt
to present itself, where food is obtained for so many mouths; but, when
we remember the vast extent of the American forests, this difficulty
is at once met. Admitting that the colony we visited contained many
millions of birds, and, counting old and young, I have no doubt it did,
there was probably a fruit-bearing tree for each, within an hour's
flight from that very spot!
"Such is the scale on which Nature labors in the wilderness! I have
seen insects fluttering in the air at particular seasons, and at
particular places, until they formed little clouds; a sight every one
must have witnessed on many occasions; and as those insects appeared,
on their diminished scale, so did the pigeons appear to us at the roost
of Mooseridge."