PASSENGER PIGEON. 315 



THE genus Ectopistes, the characters of which were first 

 published in the third volume of the Zoological Journal, 

 page 362, was instituted by Mr. Swainson, for the recep- 

 tion of the Columba migratoria, and Columba Carolinensis 

 of authors, birds which, Mr. Selby observes in the volume 

 quoted, " though nearly allied in other characters, are dis- 

 tinguished from the rest of the Turtles by the greater 

 length of their wings and tail, those essential organs of 

 motion, the extra development of which necessarily in- 

 dicates an economy and mode of life different from that of 

 those species where these members are comparatively short, 

 and differently proportioned." 



This beautiful Pigeon is a native of North America, over 

 nearly the whole of which immense continent it occasionally 

 rambles, the country to the west of the Rocky Mountains 

 only excepted. According to Mr. Hutchins, they abound 

 in the country round Hudson's Bay, where they usually 

 remain as late as December, feeding, when the ground is 

 covered with snow, on the buds of juniper. Sir John 

 Richardson says this celebrated bird arrives in the fur- 

 countries in the latter end of May, and departs in October. 

 It annually attains the sixty -second degree of latitude in 

 the warmer central districts, but reaches the fifty-eighth 

 parallel on the coast of Hudson's Bay in very fine summers 

 only. Mr. Hutchins mentions a flock of these Pigeons 

 visiting and staying two days at York Factory in 1775, as 

 a remarkable occurrence. Wilson says they spread over 

 the whole of Canada ; were seen by Captain Lewis and his 

 companions near the great falls of the Missouri, upwards of 

 two thousand five hundred miles from its mouth, reckoning 

 the meanderings of the river ; were also met with in the in- 

 terior of Louisiana by Colonel Pike ; and extend their range 

 as far south as the Gulf of Mexico, occasionally visiting 

 or breeding in almost every quarter of the United States. 



