PIGEONS AND DOVES 



(Family ColumbidceJ 



Passenger Pigeon 



(Ectopistes migratorius) 



Called also : WILD PIGEON 



Length — 16 to 25 inches. 



Male — Upper parts bluish slate shaded with olive gray on back 

 and shoulders, and with metallic violet, gold, and greenish 

 reflections on back and sides of head; the wing coverts with 

 velvety black spots; throat bluish slate, quickly shading into 

 a rich reddish buff on breast, and paling into white under- 

 neath; two middle tail feathers blackish; others fading from 

 pearl to white. Eyes red, like the feet; bill black. 



Female — Similar, but upper parts washed with more olive brown; 

 less iridescence; breast pale grayish brown fading to white 

 underneath. 



Range — Eastern North America, nesting chiefly north of or along 

 the northern borders of United States as far west as the 

 Dakotas and Manitoba, and north to Hudson Bay. 



Season — Chiefly a transient visitor in the United States of late years. 



The wild pigeon barely survives to refute the adage, "In 

 union there is strength." No birds have shown greater gregari- 

 ousness, the flocks once numbering not hundreds nor thousands 

 but millions of birds; Wilson in 1808 mentioning a flock seen 

 by him near Frankfort, Kentucky, which he conservatively esti- 

 mated at over two billion, and Audubon told of flights so dense 

 that they darkened the sky, and streamed across it like mighty 

 rivers. So late as our Centennial year one nesting ground in 

 Michigan extended over an area twenty-eight miles in length by 

 three or four in width. The modern mind, accustomed to deal 

 only with pitiful remnants of feathered races, can scarcely grasp 

 the vast numbers that once made our land the sportsman's para- 



294 



