PASSENGEB PIGEON 387 



off the nest by force. The latter struggles and squeals precisely like a tame 

 squab, but is finally crowded out along the branch and after farther feeble 

 resistance flutters down to the ground. Three or four days elapse before it 

 is able to fly well. Upon leaving the nest it is often fatter and heavier than 

 the old birds ; but it quickly becomes much thinner and lighter, despite the 

 enormous quantity of food that it consumes. 



Another point about young birds was brought out by Brewster 



(1889) from Stevens. He writes: 



On one occasion an immense flock of young birds became bewildered in a 

 fog while crossing Crooked Lake and descending struck the water and per- 

 ished by thousands. The shore for miles was covered a foot or more deep 

 with them. The old birds rose above the fog and none were killed. 



As with all the pigeons, the passenger pigeon fed its young at 

 first with the so-called " pigeon milk," the secretions from the 

 glandular crop, mixed with the food in the crop, and serving to 

 digest it. It is probable that the young inserted its bill into that 

 of the mother to obtain this " milk," although some writers state 

 that the mother inserted her bill into that of the young. In these 

 large colonies, communal feeding of squabs that had lost their 

 mothers has been observed. 



Plumages. — [Author's note: I have seen but one nestling of the 

 passenger pigeon ; this is quite completely, but very thinly, covered 

 with long, soft, hairlike, " honey -yellow " down. This and two speci- 

 mens showing the development of the juvenal plumage are in the 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology, in Cambridge, Mass. A small 

 juvenal female, 8 inches long, is nearly fledged, but the yellowish 

 down filaments still adorn the head, neck, and breast ; the crown and 

 upper back are " bister " or " warm sepia," shading off to " natal 

 brown " on the breast and to " wood brown " on the lesser wing 

 coverts and scapulars; the feathers of the back, wing coverts, and 

 scapulars are edged with whitish, or pinkish, buff; the greater coverts 

 shade from " fawn color " to " French gray," and are more narrowly 

 edged ; many of the inner coverts have a large patch of " bister " 

 on the outer web ; the inner primaries are tipped and broadly edged 

 on the outer web with " Mikado brown," the edgings gradually dis- 

 appearing outwardly ; the lower back and rump are " Quaker drab " 

 to " mouse gray " ; the underparts shade off from " wood brown " on 

 the flanks to whitish on the belly and chin. 



Another young bird is fully fledged in juvenal plumage; the 

 feathers of the head, neck, and breast, now fully grown, have nar- 

 row, buffy- white edgings; many of the outer wing coverts, espe- 

 cially the greater, are "French gray"; the tail is shorter than the 

 adult's, the central rectrices are browner and the lateral ones are 

 darker gray, so that there is less contrast in the tail. 



