214 Wild Birds and their Haunts 



THE WOOD PIGEON (GOLUMBA 

 PALUMBUS). 



GENERIC features : Head, cheeks, neck, and upper 

 parts of the tail, bluish grey ; back and wing- 

 coverts, darker ; a white crescent-shaped spot on 

 each side of the neck surrounded by scale-like feathers, 

 with green and purple reflections ; primaries grey towards 

 the base, white in the middle, and dusky towards the 

 extremity, with the outer web white ; tail barred with 

 black at the end ; abdomen whitish ; bill orange, powdered 

 with white at the base ; iris light yellow ; feet blood-red ; 

 claws brown. Length, sixteen and a half inches. Eggs 

 pure white. 



Three or four centuries ago the taste for keeping 

 pigeons of different sorts was as strong as it is at the 

 present day, and the popular names of Runts, Croppers, 

 Carriers, Jacobins, Tumblers, Chequers, &c, modern 

 though the names may sound, were then applied to the 

 very same varieties which are described in the books of 

 to-day. Many of these were of foreign origin, and well 

 known at a remote period-in various eastern countries, so 

 that there can be no doubt that the custom of keeping 

 tame pigeons is of very ancient date. 



The pigeons in some of their habits approach the 

 gallinaceous birds, with which accordingly they are 

 classed. They are furnished with long and powerful 

 wings, by help of which they can sustain a rapid and 

 continuous flight. They seek their food mostly on the 

 ground, but do not scratch with their feet, and are more 

 given to bathe in water than to flutter in a bath of dust, 

 though in this habit also they not unfrequently indulge. 



The crop is large, in which the food supplied to their 

 young is partly macerated and reduced to a kind of pulp 

 before the young are fed. This process is carried on 

 more by the agency of the receiver than of the giver, as 

 the young birds, instead of opening their mouths and 

 allowing the food to be dropped in, help themselves by 

 inserting their bills into the sides of the old bird's mouth. 



