THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 13 



built. These might l)e one mile, or five miles wide, so 

 the actual nesting colonies occupied only 3 per cent, of 

 the townships and counties the pigeon city was built 

 across, sometimes much less than 3 per cent. 



In early days pigeons were so plentiful that a for- 

 est would seem almost entirely occupied by nests and 

 the roosts of numerous pigeons that had no nests. The 

 males cover the eggs and the young about half the 

 time and females go in separate flocks to feeding 

 grounds. The sexes seem to be divided into shifts, 

 for all the males at one period and all the females at 

 another equal period. But in this there are variations, 

 owing to distance from feeding grounds. The male 

 is on duty while the female is away. 



After choosing their mates their custom seems to be 

 of strict loyalty to each other and so devotedly at- 

 tached that when death takes one of them the other 

 remains single. With abundance of their favorite food 

 available, two eggs are usually laid at a nesting; but 

 it has been averred by unimpeachable testimony that 

 in the larger cities the general rule is, but one egg to 

 each nest. They usually nest three or four times in 

 summer, as they follow the snowline northward ; but 

 in winter they loaf in the southland and become fat. 



The chronicles of earlier writers indicate that 

 Pennsylvania streams all had pigeon cities in their 

 environs, the Delaware, Susquehanna and Allegheny 

 valleys. In 1870 there was a large city, and in 1886 

 the last pigeon city, along the Allegheny and its tribu- 

 taries. 



