126 PIGEON. 



reclaimed), and usually live congregated in extensive 

 flocks, except during the season of reproduction when 

 they pair. Most of the species seek their food 

 upon the ground. This consists of the different cerea- 

 lia, as also acorns, beech-mast, and other seeds, and 

 occasionally of the green and tender leaves of parti- 

 cular plants. Their flesh is sapid and nutritious, 

 being of a warm and invigorating nature. Their 

 flight is powerful, very rapid, and can be long sus- 

 tained, and many species are in the habit of making 

 distant periodical migrations. They are widely dis- 

 seminated, species of the genus being found in every 

 quarter of the globe, and in all climates except the 

 frozen regions of the two hemispheres. They build 

 in trees or holes of rocks, making a shallow nest of 

 small twigs loosely put together. Their eggs are never 

 more than two in number, their colour a pure white, 

 these are incubated alternately by both sexes, and 

 are hatched after being sat upon from eighteen to 

 twenty-one days. The young, upon exclusion, are 

 thinly covered with down, which is rapidly succeed- 

 ed by the proper feathers. For some time after 

 birth they are fed with a milky half-digested pulp, 

 disgorged into their mouth by their parents, whose 

 " craw, at this period, is furnished with certain 

 glands," to aid in reducing their food to this neces 

 sary consistency. 



As nearly allied to the arboreal species already de- 

 scribed, and connecting them with the typical Pi- 

 geons, our next plate represents the 



