58 THE PASSENGER PIGEON IN PENNSYLVANIA 



do not feed near the nestings. That food is left for 

 the young to Hve on while getting the use of their 



wings The first twelve days of a young pigeon's 



life, it feeds exclusively on curds that form in the craws 

 ci both the male and female parent-birds. When feed- 

 ii-g the young, the old bird draws head and neck down 

 close to the body, opens mouth wide, then the young 

 bird sticks its beak down the old bird's throat and eats 

 curds from the parent's craw. 



''This curd does not mix with the old bird's food, 

 being in a container by itself, which gives way' after 

 twelve or thirteen days from the day of hatching the 

 young. After that the squabs get beechnuts and other 

 seeds mixed with the curd. Pigeons nested in Penn- 

 sylvania, only in the spring, after a good crop of beech- 

 nuts the preceding autumn. 



"The writer's home was near these nestings. From 

 one-half mile to four miles we would find eight or 

 ten colonies of nesting birds, and we have been in six 

 or eight that were farther away. We have tried not 

 tc enlarge this account in any manner for no one knows 

 what a pigeon nesting is like, until he has visited one. 

 The birds build nests in every tree that stands on fhe 

 territory the nesting covers. Undoubtedly there were 

 three times as many nests in a hemlock tree as there 

 were in a hardwood tree. We counted fifty-seven 

 nests in a large birch tree. In a hemlock there are so 

 many more places for nests ; while the boughs were so 



