maintain that tradition, reproducing year-around even 

 in Chicago. The birds produce only one or two offspring 

 per brood, but more-or-less continuous nesting brings up 

 their reproductive potential. 



Pigeons are models of traditional morality. They are 

 monogamous, forming durable pairs rather than seeking 

 new partners for each nesting. 



They are also thoroughly modern creatures who 

 share all their responsibilities. They seek a nest site 

 together, cooperate in building the nests, split the job of 

 incubating the eggs — the female usually sits by night, 

 the male by day — and the job of feeding the young once 

 they hatch. 



From the time the nest site is selected until the 

 female lays her first egg, she is sexually receptive to other 

 cocks, and during this period, the male strives to keep 

 her away from possible rivals. In the terminology of pi- 

 geon breeders, he drives her, dogging her footsteps, 

 sometimes literally treading on her tail. If she gets too 

 close to other males, he may peck at her neck or head, 

 softly if the perceived threat is not too ominous, vigor- 

 ously if she gets close to a serious rival. This is another 

 piece of pigeon behavior which you can see for yourself. 



Pigeon eggs hatch after 17 or 18 days of incubation, 

 and for the first few days of the squabs' lives, they are fed 

 almost exclusively on pigeon milk, a substance produced 

 in the crops of both male and female adults. 



As the day of hatching approaches, the pituitary 

 hormone prolactin stimulates the pigeon's crop, the 

 muscular pouch at the base of the throat where food is 

 reduced to a digestible form. The walls of the crop thick- 

 en, and the lobes that will produce the milk enlarge. By 

 the time the young hatch, the cells on the inner surface 

 of these lobes are filled with globules of fat. The cells 

 slough off gradually, releasing a cream-colored substance 

 with a consistency like milk curds. The milk averages 10 

 to 20 percent protein and as much as one-third fat. 



Pigeon milk is an elegant solution to a problem that 

 all seed-eating birds face: how do you feed your young 

 enough to allow them to grow from egg-size to adulthood 

 in a matter of weeks. Many seed-eaters feed their young 

 on high-protein insects; the pigeons create their milk. 



Parents begin to recognize their young as individ- 

 uals about the time of fledging, but they will adopt and 

 care for strange youngsters placed in their nests — even 

 though their initial alarms at the sight of the foundling 

 implies that they know it is not their own. 



The pigeons of North America are all feral birds, 

 that is, they are birds who were once domestic — or 

 whose ancestors were once domestic — but have now 

 escaped to live a wild life. The first pigeons to reach 



North America were carried by the French to Port 

 Royal, Nova Scotia, in 1606. The English imported 

 birds to Virginia in 1621 or 1622 and to Massachusetts 

 by 1942. 



Doubtless, escapes from those first dove cotes pro- 

 vided our first feral birds, and escapes from contem- 

 porary pigeon breeders still provide some additional 

 birds to our flocks. In these feral flocks, there is a strong 

 tendency for the birds to approach the color and pattern 

 of a wild rock dove. Rock doves are gray with a large 

 white spot on the lower back just above the rump. Black 

 tips on the upper wing coverts and secondary flight 

 feathers show as two dark vertical bands on the folded 

 wings, and there is another dark band at the tip of the 

 tail. The iridescent display feathers that encircle the 

 neck reflect green, bronze, and purple. 



The rust-colored or chestnut brown birds, the 

 white birds, the birds variously pied and speckled, are all 

 showing souvenirs of their captive ancestors who pre- 

 sumably belonged to one of the 300 or so breeds that 

 pigeon fanciers have developed over the centuries. 

 Some of these breeds were created primarily for racing, 

 but many of them were bred solely for aesthetic reasons. 

 A breeder hatched a bird with an odd genetic twist and 

 decided for those traits. Some of the results are bizarre. 



Consider, for example, the pouter pigeons. Pouters 

 with their bodies held almost upright, unlike the usual 

 pigeon stance with the body held horizontally. Their 

 legs are long and skinny. The lower portions of their 

 bodies — their pelvises and bellies — are almost equally 

 attenuated. But they can inflate their crops to the size of 

 a baseball. A standing bird in full pout looks top-heavy, 

 as if it might fall over at any moment. In previous centu- 

 ries, pouters were quite popular in England, and in their 

 profiles, you can see a sort of Regency dandy with tights 

 on his legs, his middle cinched in with a snug waistcoat, 

 and huge explosion of lace at his throat. 



Or consider the Barbs, large-headed birds whose 

 eyes are surrounded by flat discs of naked skin. In a full- 

 face view, the birds' heads look like spools of thread. 

 And the Archangels, breeds with ten different color va- 

 rieties; the Jacobins, birds whose head and neck feathers 

 are fluffed out in a large, loose mane; the Duchess and 

 the Ptarmigan with their feathered feet; the Frillbacks, 

 birds whose back feathers and outer wing coverts are 

 curled at the tips; the Maltese, a bird with long straight 

 legs, a long neck, and an upright tail. The Maltese looks 

 like what you would come up with if you tried to make a 

 chicken with nothing but an imperfect description in a 

 strange language to guide you. 



There are Tiger Swallows whose foot feathering — 



