PASSERES—PASSERINA 697 
often-quoted descriptions given by him and Audubon of Pigeon- 
haunts in the then “ back-woods” of Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana 
need not here be reproduced. That of the latter was declared by 
Waterton to be a gross exaggeration if not an entire fabrication ; 
but the critic would certainly have changed his tone had he known 
that, some hundred and fifty years earlier, Wild Pigeons so swarmed 
and ravaged the colonists’ crops near Montreal that a bishop of his 
own Church was constrained to exorcise them with holy water as if 
they had been demons.! The rapid and sustained flight of these 
Pigeons is also as well-established as their former overwhelming 
abundance—birds having been killed in the State of New York 
' whose crops contained undigested grains of rice that must have 
been not long before plucked and swallowed in South Carolina or 
Georgia. The Passenger-Pigeon is about the size of a common 
Turtle-DoveE, but with a long, wedge-shaped tail. The male is of 
a dark slate-colour above, and purplish-bay beneath, the sides of 
the neck being enlivened by gleaming violet, green and _ gold. 
The female is drab-coloured above and dull white beneath, with 
only a slight trace of the brilliant neck-markings” (see PIGEON). 
PASSERES, the name given by Linnzus to his Sixth Order of 
Birds, which though for a time set aside in favour of other designa- 
tions, INSESSORES and the like, or modified into such a form as 
PASSERIN#:,® has been restored to use of late years, and approximately 
in its author’s sense—the genera Certhia, Sitta, Oriolus, Gracula, 
Corvus and Paradisea, which he had placed in his Pica, being 
added, while Caprimulgus, the portion of Htrundo containing the 
SWIFTS, and Colwmba have been removed. For further subdivision 
of the Order, which, though offering comparatively little variation of 
essential importance, comprehends far more genera and species than 
all the others put together, see INTRODUCTION. 
PASSERIN 4%, a group so named of Nitzsch in 1820 (Deutsche 
Archiv fiir Physiol. vi. p. 253) to include the genera Sturnus, Oriolus, 
Lanius, Muscicapa, Aimpelis, Hirundo, Turdus, Accentor, Sylvia, Mota- 
cilla, Anthus, Alauda, Parus, Sitta, Certhia (with Tichodroma), 
1 Voyages du Baron de la Hontan dans l’ Amerique scptentrionale, ed. 2, 
Amsterdam: 1705, vol. i. pp. 93, 94. In the first edition, published at The 
Hague in 1703, the passage, less explicit in details but to the same effect, is af 
p. 80. The author’s letter, describing the circumstance, is dated May 1687. 
2 There are several records of the occurrence in Britain of this Pigeon, but in 
most cases the birds noticed cannot be supposed to have found their own way 
hither. One, which was shot in Fife in 1825, may, however, have crossed the 
Atlantic unassisted by man. 
3 The names Passeriformes and lately even Passeridx(!) have been in some 
instances employed ; with very slight or no modification they signify the same 
thing as Passerine. 
