416 Clakk, Pterylosis of the Wild Pigeon. [o"t. 



Seed and skin of apple 



Pulp of pear (?) 



Acorn 



Meat of an unknown nut 



A piece of rotten wood 



A piece of cork 



Miscellaneous. 

 A rubber band 

 Gravel 



THE PTERYLOSIS OF THE WILD PIGEON. 



HUBERT LYMAN CLARK. 



Recently, Dr. Jonathan Dwight called my attention to the de- 

 sirability of placing on record an account of the pterylosis of the 

 Wild Pigeon (Edopistes migratorius), since material suitable for the 

 purpose is accessible to me. For the use of this material, I take 

 pleasure in acknowledging my debt to Mr. Henshaw and Mr. 

 Bangs, of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



The Museum is so fortunate as to have the skin of a very young 

 nestling (M. C. Z. no. 73216) from Wisconsin, which although 

 covered with its nearly uniform coat of neossoptiles yet shows 

 fairly well the main tracts of the pterylosis. This nestling meas- 

 ures about 90 mm. in length, with the bill about 15 mm. more. 

 The skin is light brow r n, the neossoptiles are rather bright tawny 

 yellow and the feather-buds of the coming contour feathers are 

 nearly black. The wings and little stump of a tail are too badly 

 dried up to make any study of the quills profitable, but perhaps 

 the most striking feature of the pterylosis is the marked develop- 

 ment of the "pelvic wing" so well described and figured by Beebe 

 in the White-winged Dove (1915, Zoologica, vol. II, no. 2). In the 

 young Ectopistes this consists of nineteen quills as against eighteen 

 in Melopelia, but owing to the position of the tibia and the dryness 

 of the skin, it is not possible to determine satisfactorily whether 

 the arrangement of these quills is in reality as different from that 



