356 BULLETIN" 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Francis C. Willard (1916) made the following observations in the 

 Huachuca Mountains, Ariz. : 



There were a few pigeons nesting in the vicinity, and one pair near camp 

 was watched quite closely from the time the nest was begun until the egg was 

 laid. Nest building was carried on only in the early morning hours, from sun- 

 rise till about S o'clock. Both birds were present, but the female alone seemed 

 to be engaged in the actual construction of the nest, which she went about in 

 a very lackadaisical manner. The pair would sit together on the few sticks 

 already in place for many minutes; at last the female seemed to remember 

 that she was nest building and flew up the mountain side followed by the male. 

 Considerable time was spent on every trip after material, so very few sticks 

 were added each day, and it was not until six days had elapsed that the 

 flimsy platform was completed and the egg laid. 



Eggs. — Most authorities agree that this pigeon lays, almost invari- 

 ably, only one egg; but there are a number of apparently authentic 

 records of two eggs in a nest. The egg is elliptical ovate, generally 

 somewhat pointed and pure white. The shell is smooth and slightly 

 glossy. The measurements of 19 eggs average 39.7 by 27.9 milli- 

 meters ; the eggs showing the four extremes measure 43.5 by 30, 39.3 

 by 30.2, and 36.8 by 25.9 millimeters. 



Yovng. — According to Major Bendire (1892) the period of incuba- 

 tion is " from 18 to 20 days, both sexes assisting. The young grow 

 rapidly, and are able to leave the nest when about a month old." The 

 nesting season is prolonged through 10 months of the year, and the 

 evidence shows that probably several young are raised during the sea- 

 son. Clinton G. Abbott (1927) has published some notes from 

 Albert E. Stillman, who had good opportunities for studying this 

 species in San Diego Count} 7 . In his notes for September 17, 1922, 

 he writes : 



That day the female left the oak tree in the early morning and returned at 

 twilight ; after quickly feeding the young she left again. Next clay she left at 

 daybreak and returned at sundown. For more than a week after that I kept 

 the youngster with me during the day, letting him perch on my finger or hop 

 about on the cabin floor, returning him to his nest before evening. On the 

 morning of October 2 I found that the young bird had climbed from the nest 

 and was sitting on a branch of the oak tree, where he remained until late in the 

 afternoon. That night he roosted on the high limb of a nearby pine tree. On 

 October 4 he left the neighborhood and I did not see him again. 



That successive young pigeons are sometimes raised in one nest the same 

 season was proved by Bushnell in 1925. He found a nest on March S containing 

 one egg, from which the squab hatched and grew up. Then the pigeon laid 

 an egg in the same nest and started to incubate. The second young bird 

 hatched about the middle of May and lived to leave the nest. 



Dr. Joseph Grinnell (1928a) watched a pigeon feeding its young 

 in the Yosemite region on September 29, 1927, of which he says : 



Soon an old bird alighted, coming up the same steep course as the first one, at 

 mid-height of the trees through the forest, and alighted on a branch of the nest 

 tree, on a level with the nest but on nearly the opposite side of the trunk. 



