184 VERTEBRATA : AVES OR BIRDS. 



California Vulture, is the largest rapacious bird in Amer- 

 ica, except the Condor, having a total length of about 

 fifty inches. 



SUB-SECTION VI. 

 THE ORDER OF COLUMB^E OR PIGEONS AND DOVES. 



THE name of this order is from the Latin word colwn- 

 ba, a pigeon. The Columbge are birds which have the 

 bill shorter than the head, the basal portion covered by a 

 soft skin in which the nostrils are situated, the hind toe 

 on the same level as the others, and the anterior toe 

 without a basal membrane. They live in pairs, lay two 

 eggs for a brood, but breed often, and feed their young 

 with macerated food from their own crops. 



The common domestic Doves and Pigeons, the Wild 

 Pigeons, the Turtle Doves, etc., which together consti- 

 tute the family of Columbidae, are familiar examples of 

 this interesting order. 



The Wild or Passenger Pigeon, of North America, is 

 seventeen inches long, and has the upper parts blue, 

 under parts mainly purplish-red, and the sides and back 

 of the neck a glossy golden-violet. This Pigeon is ex- 

 tremely rapid in flight, being able to perform a long 

 journey at an average speed of a mile a minute ! The mi- 

 grations are for the purpose of procuring food, and hence 

 do not take place at any particular season of the year. Mil- 

 lions of pigeons often associate in a single roost, completely 

 filling a forest for thirty or forty miles in length and several 

 miles in breadth, and literally loading and breaking down 

 large trees. From their roosts they fly off hundreds of 

 miles, in some cases, to feeding-grounds, and return at 



