0l "i9i5 J Townsend, Notes on the Rock Dove. 309 



jumps into the air, and occasionally flies a few feet. At times, 

 when not actually courting, he caresses his mate by kissing or 

 billing and at times feeds her with "pigeons-milk." Again the 

 happy pair preen each others feathers and search for tormenting 

 inhabitants in a manner suggestive of monkeys or certain savages. 



The fighting that goes on between rival males is an important 

 part of the courtship, a fact that is generally overlooked in poetical 

 accounts of the gentle, cooing dove. These cliff-dwellers on window 

 ledges and projecting copings of high buildings may often be seen 

 engaged in sparring with their wings. Sometimes only one, some- 

 times both wings are used, and the birds strike with considerable 

 force and swiftness and deliver the blows on each others heads and 

 necks and sometimes push or ward with one wing and strike with 

 the other. The contest is often continued with but little advantage 

 on either side for minutes at a time, but generally results in the 

 weaker — not going to the wall — but being forced away from it 

 off the ledge and having to use his weapons for flight. Sometimes 

 the conquered one returns at once to the fray but often is obliged to 

 content himself with a humbler station and the victor, undisturbed, 

 struts and coos before his shy mate. The fighting is distinctly a 

 cliff performance, with the object of pushing the rival off the ledge. 

 Knight x says : " I have seen the fight protracted until one is killed 

 or completely exhausted." On the outer edge of a Pigeon's wing 

 is a bare spot of thickened integument. 2 



The nearest approach to rocky caves in cities are to be found in 

 church towers, and these are favorite nesting sites. Open situa- 

 tions on window ledges and various architectural projections on 

 buildings are, however, freely used. The nest is often built in 

 some of the busiest streets just above the passing wagons, and I 

 have seen one on an iron beam under a noisy elevated car station 

 close to an arc light. The nest is unattractive by reason of the 

 liberal amount of dung with which it is daubed and of which in 

 many cases it is chiefly composed. The walls of the building below 

 and in the vicinity are also spattered. To avoid this disfigurement 

 of buildings the ledges are sometimes built up or covered at such 



1 loc. cit. 



2 vide Lucas. The Weapons and Wings of Birds, Report of U. S. Nat. 

 Museum, 1893, p. 656. 



