THE BAND-TAILED PIGEON. 555 



The typical diet of the Wild Pigeon is acorns, and the birds nsed forni- 

 erly to be abundant on the oak-bordered prairies of Steilacooni, and on the 

 southeast corner of Vancouver Island; but our northwestern oak (Oiicrciis 

 garryaiia) is not prodigal of acorns, having its hands full fighting parasites, so 

 that the main dependence of Pigeons hereabouts has always been berries and 

 vetches, with the lesser ground forage. Wild cherries, salmon berries (Rubus 

 spectabilis), and red elder-berries (Sambiiciis callicarpa) are favorite num- 

 bers, while huckleberries, blackberries, and raspberries are not omitted. In 

 Whatcom County I have found them feeding heavily upon the sweetish berries 

 of the Cascara sagrada (Rlimuniis piirsliiaiia). They have also a great fond- 

 ness for mineral earths, and resort to the salt-impregnated edges of tide flats, 

 like Londoners to Bath. 



The summer season of this species becomes shorter as one proceeds north- 

 ward. In southern Arizona the bird is resident and nests at any season, rais- 

 ing, no doubt, several broods in the course of a year. At tlie latitude of the 

 Columbia Ri\'er, Pigeons appear from the South in April, and linger until 

 October or even November; while at Blaine the birds do not appear befi)re 

 May 5th, nor are they found after the middle of September. Hence, it is 

 evident that in southern Washington the\' may raise twi_i broods, hut further 

 north only one. 



Pigeons have no taste for architecture, and the nesting season appears to 

 overtake them, as it were, unawares. They still maintain a loose colonial 

 arrangement, and assemble at favorite feeding resorts thruout the nesting sea- 

 son, but nests are seldom placed so near as adjoining trees. The eggs, sometimes 

 two in number, but usually only one, are often laid upon the bare ground of 

 an oak grove, hop-field, or clearing, without pretense of nest. Usually, how- 

 ever, the nest consists of a handful of sticks, laid crosswise in the semblance 

 of a platform; and this is placed in a fir sapling at a height of ten c>v twenty- 

 feet, resting against the stem of the tree or upon a horizontal branch. But 

 there are no hard and fast rules to be laid down. Professor O. B. Johnson, 

 in the Willamette Valley, Oregon, found a nest "i)f leaves and moss beside a 

 tree, placed on the ground between two roots ; another one upon an old stump 

 that had been split and broken about eight feet from the ground : another was 

 in the top of a fir (Abies grandis) , and was built of twigs laid upi)n tlie dense 

 flat limb of the tree, about one hundred and eighty feet from the ground." 



Stranger tales come from the Huachuca Mountains in Arizona. Mr. 

 Otho C. Poling found^ that the female, when disturbed, was able to remove 

 the egg from the nest, and to transport it safely by holding it between the 

 legs and imbedded in the feathers of the abdomen. On several occasions he 

 shot birds thus accompanied by eggs, externally carried, and believed that in 



Bendire: Life Hist. N. A. Birds, Xo\. I., p. 1 24 ff. 



