FAMILY COLUMBIDAE 



described. Fishermen at Puerto Aguadulce told me that the young, 2 

 in number, were taken often to be raised as household pets. 



ZENAIDURA MACROURA (Linnaeus): Mourning Dove; 

 Paloma Rabiaguda 



Figure 4 



Cohimba macroura Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., ed. 10, 1758, p. 164. (Cuba.) 



A grayish brown dove, with elongated, pointed tail. 



Description. — Length 265-300 mm. ; 14 rectrices. Adult male, fore- 

 part of crown fawn brown, changing to gray at center and over nape ; 

 side of head and upper neck deeper brown ; back grayish brown ; rump 

 gray ; upper tail coverts brownish gray ; lesser and middle wing coverts 

 brownish gray with browner edgings ; greater wing coverts and outer 

 secondaries gray ; primaries fuscous, edged narrowly with white ; 

 elongated central tail feathers like upper tail coverts ; others gray, 

 banded centrally with black, tipped broadly with white except for the 

 two adjacent to the central pair ; throat buffy white ; sides of neck and 

 breast fawn color ; a small spot behind auricular region black, glossed 

 faintly with blue ; hindneck and side of neck glossed with bronze and 

 metallic purple ; breast, sides, and abdomen pinkish buff. 



Adult female, similar but duller colored. 



Immature, duller, more grayish brown; feathers of anterior part of 

 body and wing coverts with paler tips. 



The mourning dove, of local distribution, is found on the open lands 

 of pastures and savannas, where it feeds on the ground, or rests in the 

 open tops of dead trees or on wires. It flushes with a flash of the black 

 and white markings of the tail, and flies swiftly with whistling wings. 



The food is entirely seeds, in large part the many wild varieties, but 

 the mourning dove comes also with other pigeons to glean waste grains 

 in ricefields after the harvest. 



The birds found in Panama include a resident subspecies of small 

 size, and two others migrant from the north, that here are near the 

 southern limits of the winter range. In the measurements of the forms 

 that follow, the tail length is omitted, as unreliable due to wear. 



Goodwin (Auk, 1958, pp. 330-334) has united the genus Zenaidura 

 with Zenaida after a survey of all the species concerned. I prefer the 

 arrangement of Peters (Condor, 1934, pp. 213-215) where Zenaidura 

 and its allies with 14 rectrices are separated from Zenaida with 12. 



