It was then half-past
one; I sat for more than an hour, but instead of a diminution of this
prodigious procession, it seemed rather to increase, 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 crossed Kentucky River, at the
town of Frankfort, at which time the living torrent above my head seemed
as numerous and as extensive as ever. Long after this I observed them in
large bodies that continued to pass for six or eight minutes, and these
again were followed by other detached bodies, all moving in the same
south-east direction, till after six o'clock in the evening. The great
breadth of front which this mighty multitude preserved would seem to
intimate a corresponding breadth of their breeding-place, which, by
several gentlemen who had lately passed through part of it, was stated
to me at several miles."
From these various observations, Wilson calculated that the number of
birds contained in the mass of pigeons which he saw on this occasion was
at least two thousand millions, while this was only one of many similar
aggregations known to exist in various parts of the United States.
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