142 PIGEONS 



Grande valley, where it may be found, Mr. Sennett says, by the 

 peculiar note which distiuguishes it from all other pigeons. 



GENUS MELOPELIA. 



319. Melopelia leucoptera (Linn.). White-winged Dove. 

 Tail rounded, shorter tliau wing-, of twelve broad, rounded feathers ; 



wings pointed ; bill slender and length- 

 . ened. equaling- tarsus; a large bare 



space around eye. Adult male : wing 

 with large white patch on coverts, 

 ^^' ■ conspicuous against black quills ; tail 



bluish gray, broadly tipped with white preceded by black, two middle 

 feathers brown ; sides of head with bluish black spot next to bronzy iri- 

 descent patch ; top of head and neck dull pinkish ; rest of upper parts 

 brownish, except for bluish gray of lower back ; under parts soft fawn 

 color, fading to whitish. Adult female : similar but smaller and duller. 

 Young : like female but still duller, feathers of upper parts tipped with 

 paler and breast with rusty tinge. Length: 11.00-12.25, wing 6.30-6.80, 

 tail 4.80-5.25, 



Distribution. — Resident in Lower Sonoran and Tropical zones from 

 Florida and Texas to Arizona, and south through Lower California and 

 Mexico to Costa Rica, Cuba, and Jamaica. Casual in Colorado. 



Nest. — A frail platform of interlaced sticks, lined with weeds, dry 

 grass, and often mesquite leaf stems, placed in mesquite, walnut, willow, 

 or cactus, from 6 to oO feet from the ground. Eggs : 2, Avhite. 



Food. — Insects, small seeds, grain, berries, mesquite beans, and cactus 

 fruit. 



As the jay seems a part of the mountain forest, the horned lark 

 of the prairie, and the sage thrasher inseparable from the sagebrush 

 plains, so the white-winged dove belongs to the hot cactus and 

 mesquite valleys of the lower Colorado, Gila, and Rio Grande. 

 Though often seen perching on a giant cactus, its life is largely 

 spent in the mesquite, and its plump form is so constantly seen 

 through the thin mesquite foliage that it comes to seem almost like 

 a fruit of the tree. Now the dove is only perching there, beside a 

 water-pool, now on a branch acting as sentinel while a hungry flock 

 is down in a patch of wild sunflower or the wheatfield of the 

 rancheria ; but in the nesting season it has taken up its abode in 

 the tree and is building its nest and rearing its young in the protec- 

 tion of the thorny branches. 



So closely is it associated with the mesquite country that even its 

 monotonous %i^lioo-lioo' -lioo-hod calls up pictures of desert thorn-brush 

 and 'dobe walls, over which the large, handsome bird is flying with 

 white bands outspread on wings and tail. Its note is an exaggerated 

 form of the coo common to the family. To make it the dove puffs 

 out his throat like a pouter pigeon, emitting the curious hollow 

 sound which is more suggestive of the hooting of an owl than the 

 languid cooing of a dove. Vernon Bailey. 



