up in due time, the picking up of the dead and wounded being left for next morning's employment. The pigeons were constantly coming, and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in the number of those that arrived. Towards the ap

proach of day 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, racoons, and opossums, were seen sneaking off, while eagles and hawks of different species, accompanied by a crowd of vultures, came to supplant them, and enjoy their share of the spoil."

Either a roosting-place or a breeding-place of these birds is looked upon by the Indians as their grand dependence and a general source of profit for the season. The plumage of the passenger-pigeon is blue on the head and neck, and greyish on the back, wings, and tail. The under parts are brownish red, with rich reflections of gold, emerald, and crimThe length of the bird is sixteen inches and a half. The female is duller in plumage, and of rather smaller size. Passenger-pigeons, notwithstanding their migratory nature and powerful flight, can be reconciled to the confinement of an aviary, and become very tame.

son.

We have already noticed the plaintive notes of doves. These are not, however, the sounds of

Y

lamentations, but those of tenderness and love. The cooing of the Zenaida dove is said to be peculiarly touching, so that one who hears it for the first time, naturally stops to ask "What bird is that?" Its effect on the feelings is illustrated by an anecdote respecting a pirate, who was associated with a band of the most desperate villains that ever annoyed the navigation of the Florida coast. This man had frequent occasions to repair to certain wells, near which the doves nestled, and their soft and melancholy cry was the means of awaking in his breast feelings which had long slumbered, and of melting his heart to repentance. He was accustomed to linger at the spot, and to contrast his guilty and wretched life with former days of comparative innocence and peace. He said that he never left the wells without increased fears and misgivings respecting futurity, and at last he became so deeply moved by these notes, the only soothing sounds he ever heard during his life of horrors, that he poured out his soul in supplications for mercy, and firmly resolved to abandon his desperate companions and mode of life, and to return to his own family who were deploring his absence. His escape from his vessel was accompanied by many difficulties and dangers, but no danger seemed to him comparable with that of living in the violation of human and divine laws. At last he happily reached his former home, and settled in peace among his friends. Thus were the notes of this gentle bird employed as a means of penetrating the sinner's heart, and reclaiming

him from the error of his ways; and thus may the feeblest instruments be made effectual to accomplish mighty ends.

Audubon, speaking of the Zenaida dove of the West India islands, says, that when sitting on her eggs, or when her young are still small, she rarely removes from them, unless an attempt be made to catch her, which she, however, evades with great dexterity. "On several occasions of this kind, I have thought that the next moment would render me the possessor of one of these doves alive. Her beautiful eye was steadily bent on mine, in which she must have discovered my intention; her body was gently made to retire sideways to the farther edge of her nest as my hand drew nearer to her, and just as I thought I had hold of her, off she glided with the quickness of thought, taking to wing at once. She would then alight within a few yards of me, and watch my motions with so much sorrow, that her wings drooped, and her whole frame trembled as if suffering from intense cold. Who could stand such a scene of despair? I left the mother to her eggs or offspring." The powerful instinct which could subdue the natural timidity of the dove, and induce her to sit quietly on her eggs, in the presence of danger, reminds us of some remarks on this subject from the pen of a very pleasing writer, the author of the Journal of a Naturalist.

"The extraordinary change of character which many creatures exhibit, from timidity to boldness and rage, from stupidity to art and stratagem, for the preservation of a helpless offspring, seems to be

an established ordination of Providence, actuating in various degrees most of the races of animated beings; and we have few examples of this influencing principle more obvious than that of the missel thrush, in which a creature addicted to solitude and shyness will abandon its haunts, and associate with those it fears, to preserve its offspring from an enemy more merciless and predaceous still. The love of offspring, one of the strongest impressions given to created beings, and inseparable from their nature, is ordained by the Almighty as the means of preservation under helplessness and want. Dependant, totally dependant as is the creature, for everything that can contribute to existence and support, upon the Great Creator of all things, so are new-born feebleness and blindness dependant upon the parent that produced them; and to the latter is given intensity of love, to overbalance the privations and sufferings required from it. This love, that changes the nature of the timid and gentle to boldness and fury, exposes the parent to injury and death, from which its wiles and cautions do not always secure it; and in man, the avarice of possession will at times subdue his merciful and better feelings. Beautifully imbued with celestial justice and humanity, as all the ordinations which the Israelites received in the wilderness were, there is nothing more impressive, nothing more accordant with the divinity of our nature, than the particular injunctions which were given in respect to showing mercy to the maternal creature cherishing its young, when by reason of its parental regard it might be

placed in danger. The eggs, the offspring, were allowed to be taken; but 'thou shalt in anywise let the dam go;' 'thou shalt not, in one day, kill both an ewe and her young.' The ardent affection, the tenderness with which I have filled the parent, is in no way to lead to its injury or destruction:' and this is enforced not by command only, not by the threat of punishment and privation, but by the assurance of temporal reward, by promise of the greatest blessings that can be found on earth, length of days and prosperity."

The notes of the ground-dove are described by Audubon as being peculiarly touching when heard in the calm of a spring morn among the islands which protect the shores of South Carolina, Georgia, and the Floridas, where "the air is rendered balmy by the effluvia of thousands of flowers, each of which rivals its neighbour in the brilliancy of its hues. Stop there, kind reader, and seat yourself beneath the broadly extended arms of the thicklyleaved ever-green oak, and at that joyous moment when the first beams of the sun reach your eye, see the owl passing low and swiftly over the ground in haste to reach his diurnal retreat before the increasing light renders all things dim to his sight; observe the leathern-winged bat pursuing his undulating course through the dewy air, now reflecting downwards to seize the retiring nocturnal insect, now upwards to pursue another species, as it rises to meet the genial warmth emitted by the orb of day. Listen-for at such a moment your soul will be touched by sounds-to the soft, the mellow, the