Fruits
of the citrous family were found in abundance; wild cherries, wild
grapes, figs, and an apple of amazing proportions and exceeding
sweetness. Pigeons in great numbers were found, a fact that puzzled
Professor Knapendyke not a little.
He finally arrived at an astonishing conclusion. He connected the
presence of these birds with the remark-able exodus of wild pigeons
from their haunts in the United States in the eighties. Millions
of pigeons at that time took their annual flight southward from
Michigan, Indiana and other states in that region, and were never
seen again. What became of this prodigious cloud of birds still
remains a mystery. Knapendyke now advanced the theory that in
skirting the Gulf of Mexico on their way to the winter roosts in
Central America they were caught by a hurricane and blown out to
sea. By various stages the bewildered survivors of the gale made
their way down the east coast of South America, only to be caught
up again by another storm that carried them out into the Atlantic.
A few reached this island, hundreds of miles from the mainland,
and here they remained to propagate. At any rate, the naturalist
was preparing to put his impressions and deductions into the form
of a paper which he intended to submit to the National Geographic
Magazine as soon as he returned to the United States.
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