ORDER COLUMB/E. 



205 



from the crop the secreted soft food, which is received into the lower spoon-shaped 

 mandible of the young. It is singular that this remarkable mode of nourishing 

 the young should have been overlooked by almost every naturalist who has written 

 on the subject, although it is familiar to every boy who keeps pigeons. It is not 

 even mentioned by Macgillivray, and the feeding is erroneously described even in 

 the most recent works. The distinction in the formation of the lower mandible 

 in the fowl and the pigeon is shewn in the engraving of the skulls seen from 

 above. 



SKULL OF FOWL, SHEWING NARROW 

 LOWER MANDIBLE, a 



SKULL OF PIGEON, SHEWING SPOON-SHAPED 

 LOWER MANDIBLE, a 



The Pigeons lay but two eggs, which usually, but not always, produce birds 

 of opposite sexes. The young, when hatched, are usually covered with a profusion 

 of yellow down, which character has been made the basis of a separate classification 

 by some authors, not knowing that some varieties of the domestic Pigeon are 

 hatched perfectly naked. 



Seebohm, in his " British Birds," states that there can be no doubt that in a 

 wild state Pigeons moult twice in the j^ear. This is in opposition to what has 

 been written by all previous authors, and is certainly quite untrue of domestic 

 Pigeons, even of those that are kept in the most natural conditions. 



W. B. TEGETMEIER. 



VOL IV. 



2 L 



