the owner of the house benevolently caused a covering to be thrown over them, till the severity of the storm was past.  No sooner had it subsided, than the sages of the colony assembled, fluttering round the window, and hovering over the temporary covering of the fallen nest.  As soon as this careful anxiety was observed, the covering was removed, and the utmost joy evinced by the group, on finding the young ones alive and unhurt.  After feeding them, the members of this assembled community arranged themselves into working order.  Each division taking its appropriate station, commenced instantly to work, and before night-fall they had jointly completed an arched canopy over the young brood in the corner where they lay, and securely covered them against a succeeding blast.  Calculating the time occupied by them in performing this piece of architecture, it appeared evident that the young must have perished from cold and hunger, before any single pair could have executed half the job.”

“How very kind, Uncle Thomas!  Had they been reasoning creatures, they could not have behaved more properly.”

“I dare say not, Frank.  Such traits overstep the limits of instinct, and almost trespass on that of reason.”

“You asked, Frank, if it was want of food which prompted the flight of migratory animals from one place to another.  In some cases it is so, undoubtedly; as for instance, in that which I am now going to tell you about, the American passenger pigeon; it is from the work of the great naturalist, Wilson.

“The migrations of these pigeons appear to be undertaken rather in quest of food than merely to avoid the cold of the climate; since we find them lingering in the northern regions around Hudson’s Bay so late as December, and since their appearance is so casual and irregular, sometimes not visiting certain districts for several years in any considerable numbers, while at other times they are innumerable.  I have often witnessed these migrations in the Genesee country, often in Pennsylvania, and also in various parts of Virginia, with amazement; but all that I have seen of them are mere straggling parties, when compared with the congregated millions which I have since beheld in the western forests in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and the Indiana territory.  These fertile and extensive regions abound with the nutritious beech nut, which constitutes the chief food of the wild pigeon.  In seasons when these nuts are abundant, corresponding multitudes of pigeons may be confidently expected.  It sometimes happens, that having consumed the whole produce of the beech trees in an extensive district, they discover another at the distance of perhaps sixty or eighty miles, to which they regularly repair every morning, and return as regularly in the course of the day, or in the evening, to their place of general rendezvous, or, as it is generally called, the roosting place.  These roosting places are always in the wood, and sometimes occupy