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Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) by Samuel Strickland
page 222 of 232 (95%)
CHAPTER XXII.

VISIT OF THE PASSENGER-PIGEON TO THE CANADAS. -- CANADIAN BLACKBIRDS. -
- BREEDING-PLACES OF THE PASSENGER-PIGEONS. -- SQUIRRELS.

THE passenger-pigeon* visits the Canadas in the early spring-months,
and during August, in immense flocks, bringing with them an agreeable
change in the diet of the settler.

[* The passenger-pigeon is not so large as the wild pigeon of Europe.
It is slender in form, having a very long-forked tail. Its plumage is a
bluish-grey, and it has a lovely pink breast. It is, indeed, a very
elegant bird.]

Persons unacquainted with the country and the gregarious habits of this
lovely bird, are apt to doubt the accounts they have heard or read
respecting their vast numbers: since my return to England I have
repeatedly been questioned upon the subject. In answer to these
queries, I can only say that, in some parts of the province, early in
the spring and directly after wheat-harvest, their numbers are
incredible. Some days they commence flying as soon as it is light in
the morning, and continue, flock after flock, till sun-down. To
calculate the sum-total of birds passing even on one day, appears to be
impossible. I think, the greatest masses fly near the shores of the
great Canadian lakes, and sometimes so low, that they may be easily
killed with a horse-pistol, or even knocked down with a long pole.

During the first spring in which I resided at Goderich, the store-
keeper was out of shot, and the pigeons happened to be uncommonly
numerous. I had a large fowling-piece with a wide bore; so I tried a
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