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Show 32 DARWINISM CHAP. under these Hying and fluttering millions, from t~e frequen t fall of Iaro-e branches, broken down by the wCJ ght of the multitudes babove and which in their descent often destroyed numbers of the 'birds themselves; while the clothes of those engaged in traversing the ':oods were completely covered with the excrements of the p1geons. "These circumstances were related to me by many of the most respectable part of the community in. that quarter, an(l were confirmed in part by what I myself Witnessed. I passed for several miles through this same breeding-place, wh ere every tree was spotted with nests, the remains of those a:bovc described. In many instances I counted upwards of nmet.y nests on a single tree; but the pigeons had abandoned thi ~ place for another, 60 or . 80 miles ~ff~ towards Green River, where they were sa1d at that t1me to be equally numerous. From the great numbers that were constan tly passing over our heads to or from that quarter, I had no doubt of the truth of this statement. The mast had been chiefly consumed in Kentucky; and the pigeons, every morning a little before sunrise, set out for the Indiana territory, the nearest part of which was about sixty miles distant. Many of these returned before ten o'clock, and th e great body generally appeared on their return a little after noon. I h:Hl left the public road to visit the remains of the breeding-place near Shelbyville, and was traversing the woods wi th my gnn, on my way to Frankfort, when about ten o'clock the pigeons which I had observed flying the greater part of the morning northerly, began to return in such immense numbers as I 11evcr before had witnessed. Corning to an opening by the side of a creek, where I had a more uninterrupted view, I was astonished at their appearance: they were fl ying with great steadiness and rapidity, at a height beyond gunshot, in several strata deep, and so close together th at, could shot have reached them, one discharge could not have fail e<l to bring down several individuals. From right to left, as far as the eye could reach, the breadth of this vast process ion extended, seeming everywhere equally crowded. Curious to determine how long this appearance would cont innc, I took out my watch to note the time, and sat down to ob. erve thrm. It was then half-past one ; I sat for more than an honr, hut II 'rilE STRUGGLE FOR EXlR'rJ<:NCE 33 instead of a diminution of this prodigious procession, it seemed rather to i ncreasc, both in numbers and rapidity ; and anxious to reach Frankfort before night, I rose and went on. About four o'clock in the afternoon I eros. ed Kentucky Ri ver, at the town of Frankfort, n.t which time the living torrent ahove my hea,d seemed as numerous and as extensive as ever. Lon ~~· after this I obser ved them in large bodi es that conti nued t~ pass for six or eight minutes, and these again were followed by other detached bodi es, all moving in the same south- ast direction, till after . six ~'clo~k in the evenin g. 'I he great breadth of front wh1 ch th1s m1ghty mul titude pre.-ervcd would soem to in timate a corrc paneling breadth of their brecclin u. place, which, b~ several gent lemen who had lately pas. ~~l through part of 1t, was stated to me at several mil es." From these va rions observations, \ iVilson calculated that the number o_f birds_ contained in the mass of pigeons which he saw on th1s occ<~sw n was at least two thousand millions while this was onl y one of many similar aero-rogations kn ow 1~ . . . bb to ex1st 111 van ons parts of the Uni ted States. The picture here given of these defenceless birds, and th eir still more defenceless young, exposed to the attacks of nnm rons rapacious en c~i es, brings vividly before us one of the phn. es ofh the unccas1~1 g struggle for existence ever going on ; hut w en we consider the slow rate of in crease of these hirds and the enormous population they are nevertheless ahle t~ maintain, we must be convinced that in the ca. e of the majority of birds which multiply far more rapidly, an<l yet are never able to attain such numbers, the struggle ngn,in. t their 11um erons enemies and again.-t the adverse forces of nature must be even more severe or more continuous. Struggle f or Life between closely allied Animals a11cl Plants often the most severe. _The struggle we have hitherto been considering has been mamly that between an animal or plant and its direct enemie , whether these enemies are other animals which devour it or the forces of nature which destroy it. But there is another kind of struggle often going on at the same time between closely related species, which almost always terminates in the destruction of one of them. As an example of what is D |