358 BULLETIN 16 2, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



quently eaten; as many as 35 have been counted in the crop of one 

 pigeon. Fruits of dogwood, wild peas, pine seeds, and other seeds 

 have been found in their crops. Considerable cultivated grain is 

 eaten ; this is mainly waste grain, picked up in stubble fields of bar- 

 ley, oats, and corn ; but pigeons have been known to do some damage 

 by pulling up newly sown seed barley ; such records are scarce, how- 

 ever. P. A. Taverner (1926) says that in western Canada, "they 

 are especially partial to peas and are said to pull up the sprouting 

 seeds. The flocks so engaged are described as being numerous 

 enough to turn the colour of the fields they alight upon from brown 

 to blue. As they are large birds, each one intent on filling a capa- 

 cious crop, their power for damage is not small. In the autumn 

 they alight on the stooked grain and may take a considerable toll 

 of it." 



Other observers have noted in their food hazel, pinyon and other 

 nuts, wild grapes, wild cherries, wild mulberries, blueberries, black- 

 berries, raspberries, juniper, cascara, salmon and salal berries, and 

 grasshoppers and other insects. Their method of feeding on man- 

 zanita berries is thus described by Laurence M. Huey (1913) : 



Some boys there told me that for the past two weeks a buuch of about one 

 hundred pigeons had been feeding on green manzanita berries in a near-by 

 thicket, and I was much pleased when they offered to take me to the place. It 

 proved to be about one and one-half miles north of their ranch, due south of 

 Volcan Mountain, and was the only thicket thereabout having a large crop of 

 berries. In the morning the birds would begin to arrive a little after sunrise, 

 leaving between eight and nine o'clock ; in the evening they returned about four 

 and stayed until dark. They seemed always to come from and return to the 

 same place, at the top of Volcan Mountain among the pine trees. 



The pigeons seen were apparently always the same bunch, as one bird noted 

 with a few secondaries missing on the left wing was seen on three out of four 

 occasions when the flock was encountered. It was interesting to watch them 

 trying to alight on the clusters of berries, far too weak to support them, making 

 many futile attempts and finally succeeding in reaching the berries only by 

 settling on a stronger perch and then walking out to the cluster. But how 

 they did gorge and stuff when they finally got at them. 



Mr. Willard (1916) writes: 



A few days later a flock was observed feeding on acorns in a group of large 

 oak trees (Quercus emoryi). The antics of these birds were more like the 

 acrobatic stunts of parrots than of pigeons. They would walk out on the 

 slender branches till they tipped down, then, hanging by their feet, would 

 secure an acorn and drop off to alight on a branch lower down. In spite of 

 their large size, pigeons are surprisingly inconspicuous when thus engaged in 

 feeding among the leaves. 



M. French Gilman (1903) says of their feeding habits in the 

 grainfields : 



In March, 1901, great flocks of the pigeons poured into San Gorgonio Pass 

 and fed in the barley fields. For about two weeks there were hundreds of them 

 but they all left as suddenly as they had appeared. Their method of feeding 



