1915 J Townsexd, Notes on the Rock Dove. 315 



I have referred in another paper 1 to the duck-like actions of a 

 fifteen clay old Pigeon when put in a tub of water and its bearing 

 on the relationships of this bird to Gulls and Auks. Saunders 2 

 says " both wild and tame Pigeons have been seen to settle on the 

 water like Gulls and drink while floating down stream." Mr. Wm. 

 A. Jeffries tells me that he once saw a Pigeon alight on the surface 

 of the Frog Pond in Boston Common. I have seen a Pigeon 

 hovering above Charles River in Cambridge dropping its feet till 

 they touched the water, and picking up something with its bill. 

 This was repeated five or six times. This last named action points 

 to the progressive or adaptive character of the bird and not neces- 

 sarily to its aquatic ancestry, for I have observed similar actions 

 in picking up food from the water on the part of such dissimilar 

 passerine birds as Bronzed Grackles, Cedar Birds and Swallows. 



The English Sparrow is the only bird with which the Pigeon is 

 intimately and constantly associated. As a rule no notice whatever 

 is taken by the larger of the smaller bird or vice versa, and both feed 

 amicably on the same ground. On rare occasions, however, I have 

 seen an English Sparrow pursue a Pigeon. Once I saw a Pigeon 

 closely pursue a Belted Kingfisher as it doubled back and forth 

 three or four times over the Frog Pond on the Common. 3 In 

 Boston I have known Crows to inflict considerable damage on the 

 eggs and squabs of Pigeons in the rookery of the tower of Trinity 

 Church, and a Duck Hawk feasted daily on adults from his perch 

 on a Commonwealth Avenue church steeple, until a sportsman 

 shot him from his attic window. 



In drinking water the bill is held in the pool continuously for 

 half a minute or more at a time, an action very unlike the sipping 

 and holding the head up of gallinaceous birds with which Pigeons 

 were formerly classed. Shore birds when feeding often hold the 

 bill immersed and probably drink at the same time. I have no 

 notes on the drinking of Auks, but I believe that Gulls drink con- 

 tinuously in a similar manner. 



In feeding on grain scattered in the street or in horse droppings 

 Pigeons do not scratch. On ground planted with grass seed they 



1 Bird Genealogy, loc. cit. 



2 loc. cit. 



3 Birds of Essex County, 1905, p. 223. 



