V0l 'i9U VI11 ] Craig, Emotion in the Passenger Pigeon. 417 



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No. 15. «=:i8o. No. 16. 



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Soft clucking notes, given While assisting female in A gutteral clucking, on giving 



in nest iust after having carrying straws to nest- straw to female, or on putting it 



brought a straw up to female. in "est when she is not there. 



While carrying straw 10 nest. 



No. .8. p-==r / No. 19. No. 20. ^ 



The vestigial Coo, or the "Keeho." The notes which have just 

 been described, were, as said, the most frequent and the most 

 characteristic utterances of the Passenger Pigeon. But not un- 

 commonly when the bird is kecking and clucking he lapses into a 

 weak, somewhat musical strain sounding like keeho or some such 

 dissyllable. This is no doubt a vestigial coo. It resembles the coo 

 in sound, and also in the circumstances under which it is uttered, 

 for it is given after the more unmusical notes, both in dealing with 

 an enemy and in wooing the female. I call it vestigial, a mere 

 remnant of a coo, for several reasons: its sound is feeble and lack- 

 ing expression; in function it seems unimportant, coming usually 

 after or among the stronger, more expressive utterances; finally, 

 the manner of its utterance gives the impression that it is somewhat 

 less voluntary, less under the bird's control, than are some other 

 notes of this species or the coos of other species. One sees in this 

 probably an adaptation to life in a community so populous and 

 hence so noisy that cooing could hardly be heard and the pigeon 

 which could best win a female or warn off an interloper would be 

 the pigeon with the merely loudest voice. In this ultra-gregarious 

 species, the soft note, the coo, has degenerated; whereas the hard 

 cry, the kah, has been developed and intensified into the loud 

 sounds of kecking, clucking, chattering and scolding. The follow- 

 ing notations (Nos. 21-26) illustrate the vestigial coo. 



m 



t 



-&-$*- 



To female in nest, after good kee - cho 



deal of low clucking. 



