NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 185 



the summer months. Dr. Merrill found it not uncommon about Fort Brown, but 

 more plentiful higher up the river. It loves the deep, dense woods, where It can 

 dwell in quiet and retirement. The nests are frail platforms of twigs and grasses, 

 such as are usually built by other pigeons, placed in trees and bushes. Mr. George 

 B. Sennett describes a nest which he found April 9th, near Hidalgo, on the Rio 

 Grande. It was placed in a thicket, about eight feet from the ground, made of twigs, 

 was frail and saucer shaped and contained a single young, nearly fledged. He states 

 that this bird lays several times in a season. Nests were found containing eggs and 

 young in all stages of development, but in no case did a nest contain more than one 

 egg or young. Mr. Sennett gives the average size, taken from a large series, as 

 1.55x1.10, the length varying from 1.60 to 1.45, and the breadth from 1.18 to 1.10.* 

 The eggs are pearly white. 



314. WHITE-CROWNED PIGEON. Colnmba leucocephala Linn. Geog. 

 Dist. Greater Antilles, Bahamas and Florida Keys. 



The White-crowned Pigeon occurs in summer on the Florida Keys, and it 

 breeds abundantly on some of the smaller islands; it is an abundant resident species 

 in the Bahamas and West Indies. This Pigeon, according to Audubon, arrives on 

 the southern Florida Keys about April 20th, or not until May first. The birds were 

 shy and wary on account of the war waged against them, their flesh being esteemed 

 for its fine flavor. Their shyness only partially abated during the breeding season 

 and they would silently slide from their nest when sitting, and retreat to the dark 

 shades of the mangroves. The nest is built in low trees and bushes, composed of 

 twigs carefully arranged, with little or no lining of grasses. It is, on the whole, a 

 bulky structure for a pigeon, These birds often breed in numbers, nesting in trees, 

 some at high elevations, others in low mangrove bushes, and the nests resemble that 

 of the Passenger Pigeon, but are said to be more compact and better lined. The eggs 

 are two in number, oval in form, and opaque- white with a very smooth surface; the 

 average size is 1.41x1.02. 



315. PASSENGER PIGEON. Ectopistes miffratorius (Linn.) Geog. Dist. 

 Eastern North America, from Hudson Bay southward, and west to the Great Plains, 

 straggling thence to Nevada and Washington. Breeding range now mainly re- 

 stricted to portions of the Canadas and the northern borders of the United States, 

 as far west as Manitoba and the Dakotas. 



The Wild Pigeon once wandered in immense numbers in search of food through- 

 out all parts of North America. In early times it was extremely abundant in par- 

 ticular localities. At the present writing (1897) it seems to be on the same parallel 

 with the American Buffalo of the Western plains, almost, or very nearly extermin- 

 ated. Both were seen in countless *housands, and today it is not easy to procure 

 examples of either. The late Maj. Bendire, writing in 1892, says that it looks now 

 that the total extermination of the Wild Pigeon might be accomplished within the 

 present century. The only thing which retards the complete extinction of the 

 Passenger Pigeon is the fact that the birds are so few in numbers that it does 

 not pay to net them. The breeding range o'f this famous pigeon today is principally 

 in the thinly settled and wooded regions along our northern border, from northern 

 Maine westward to Northern Minnesota; in the Dakotas, as well as in similar locali- 

 ties in the eastern and middle portions of the Dominion of Canada, and northward 

 to Hudson Bay. According to an informant of Mr. Brewster'9, the last nesting in 



* Further notes on the Ornithology of the Rio Grande of Texns. 



