ORDER OF PIGEONS AND DOVES 



Order Columbw; family Columbidcc 



niE names Pigeon and Dove, applied to birds of this group, are synonymous 

 or interchangeable. The former is French (Italian, piccione or pipione, Latin 

 pipio); the latter is akin to the Dutch duij (Danish due, Icelandic dufa). 

 The name Dove is commonly applied to the smaller members of the group, 

 though in England the largest species is called the Ring Dove; and, as Pro- 

 fessor Alfred Newton remarked in his Dictionary of Birds, "no sharp dis- 

 %fe tinction can be drawn between Pigeons and Doves, and in general literature 



^%k the two words are used almost indifferently while no one species can be pointed 



Jfl^V out to which the word Dove, taken alone, seems to be absolutely proper." 



■^ wF Pigeons are monogamous, but nevertheless are to a degree fickle or 



inconstant in their affections, at least in the domesticated species, and are by 

 no means the peaceful birds they are popularh' supposed to be — fierce, bloody, and stubborn 

 conflicts often occurring during the breeding season. The eggs number one or two and are 

 usually immaculate white but sometimes are immaculate buff. The nest is a very simple 

 affair, usually flat and frail, composed of twigs, straw, or similar materials, placed in a tree, 

 upon stumps, rocks, or walls, clefts of cliffs, in buildings, or on the ground. Both sexes 

 take equal part in nest building, incubation, and care of the young. The latter are hatched 

 naked, except for scattered bits of filamentous down, and are fed first by a fluid secreted in 

 the crop of the adult and later with moistened or partially digested seeds or grain from the 

 parents' crop, the young one in both cases inserting its bill into the parent's mouth, the 

 regurgitation of the food by the parent being accompanied by a violent or spasmodic jerking 

 of the body and wings. 



The food of Pigeons consists principally of grains, seeds, and fruits, and salt is seemingly 

 a necessity to them. In drinking, the bill is immersed to the nostrils, and the water drawn 

 in in a continuous draft, a method in which they are, so far as known, unique among birds. 

 The voice of Pigeons is, usually, a soft coo, varied in strength and modulation according to 

 species. It is sometimes extremely loud in proportion to the size of the bird, one of the 

 smaller American species, the blue Ground Dove, producing a sound resembling that made 

 by blowing one's breath into the mouth of a bottle, but nearly as loud as the bellowing of 

 a bull. In others the voice is plaintive or even mournful. 



The Pigeons have the head small; neck short; bill horny at the tip, compressed, and 

 with a tumid swelling near the base about the nostril; wings pointed, flat, powerful, with 

 rapid whistling flight; legs short, the tarsus scaled on the sides and back and sometimes in 

 the front as well ; front toes cleft to the base or with a slight membrane between the middle 

 and outer toes ; hind toe level with the front toes, thus making them arboreal as well as ter- 

 restrial in their habits because they can perch easily; body plump and full-breasted; and eye 

 region usually more or less naked. The plumage is peculiarly dense, but is easily detached 

 from the very tender skin. 



Pigeons are found throughout the temperate and tropical portions of the world, but 

 are most numerous in the eastern hemisphere, especially in the islands of the Indo-Malayan 

 and Australian regions, where the most beautifully colored species occur, many of them being 

 among the handsomest of birds. More than five hundred and fifty species and subspecies 

 are known, of which only about one hundred species and subspecies occur in America, and 

 only seventeen of these are of regular or even rare occurrence north of the southern boundary 

 of the United States. 



[37l 



