414 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1911. 
Wheat is one of their most coveted foods, which may be seen 
from what has already been stated, as weil as from many another 
experience. As soon as the wheat fields become ripe they swoop 
down on them in enormous numbers and take considerable toll 
of them. When the wheat is stacked up in the field they also visit 
it and devour all too much of it, if they should happen to be in the 
least hungry. In the fall, when the wheat is recently sown, they 
alight in full force in the fields and not only pick up the grains which 
are more or less in broad daylight but also poke up those which the 
plow has not sunk sufficiently deep. In order to prevent such a 
damage boys as well as others are seen at this season of the year 
running around armed with guns and other “contraptions” to kill or 
scare them away. On such occasions, however, they are not in 
general particularly timid, especiaily the young ones, so that when 
a few of them have been shot at a stack the others oftentimes fly 
away only a short distance to another stack, and hence the gunner, 
albeit he has made some lucky shots, generally becomes exhausted 
before the birds become scared. In Pennsylvania th’s species of 
- grain, as well as the rye, commonly ripens about midsummer (old style) 
and sometimes earlier, but farther north it ripens later. 
Buckwheat they are also very fond of, and levy considerable 
tribute on it. The buckwheat matures in Pennsylvania in the 
middle of September (old style). 
The berries of the tupelo or sour-gum tree (Nyssa) they also 
consume with great avidity. In Pennsylvania these ripen in Sep- 
tember. ‘This tree does not grow in Canada. 
Most forests in North America consist of oak, of which arboreal 
genus there are several species; of these the greater part have nearly 
every year a great number of acorns which in the autumn fall off in 
such quantities that quite often the ground below the oaks is covered 
by them one hand high and sometimes more. ‘These serve as food 
for several kinds of animals and birds, as, for instance, squirrels of 
several species, forest. mice, wild pigeons, etc., in addition to which, 
in places inhabited by Kuropeans, they serve as the staple food of 
hogs during the greater part of the year. During certain years the 
numberless swarms of wild pigeons already described come to Penn- 
sylvania and the other English provinces in search of these acorns. 
In Pennsylvania and other localities in North America the acorns 
mature in September and the following months. 
They are also very fond of beechnuts. ‘There is a great abundance 
of beech trees in Canada, but farther south they grow somewhat more 
sparsely. In Canada the nuts become ripe in the middle of Sep- 
tember. These, together with acorns, constitute the principal food 
of the pigeons during the entire latter part of the fall and throughout 
the winter. 
