312 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW [11:7— Oct.. 1915 



However, notwithstanding that both these species have long, 

 graduated tails, with the feathers tipped with white; that they 

 are considerably alike in their flight, and are really of , the same 

 family, no good observer of birds could possibly mistake the 

 Mourning Dove for the extinct form of Wild Pigeon. The latter 

 was a much larger bird; the male had a brilliant chestnut-red 

 breast, while its prevailing color was a fine slate blue; in fact, in 

 old times many called them "Blue Pigeons." 



A still more indifferent power of observation is exemplified in 

 mistaking the Band-tailed Pigeon (Columbaf. f aetata), of the West, 

 for the extinct Wild Pigeon, as the former does not possess the long, 

 graduated tail; the prevailing color is entirely different, and the 

 action of the bird is not the same. All these cases to which I refer 

 are simply those of malobservation, and malobservation of a kind 

 that no well trained and well informed student of birds should be 

 guilty of at any time. 



Our Mourning Dove (Fig. 5) lays normally two white, elHp- 

 soidal eggs to the set, the nest being a somewhat flimsy structure, 

 chiefly composed of fine twigs and sticks. A typical example of 

 one of these nests, with the two, very young, downy squabs in it, 

 is here shown in Figure 7. This nest I photographed in situ, the 

 birds having built it in a spruce tree in Virginia, across the Potomac 

 River from Washington. It is but sHghtly reduced from natural 

 size, and gives an excellent idea of the nest and young of the 

 Mourning Dove. 



One day this spring (19 15), when Mrs. Shufeldt and I were 

 taking one of our tramps through the woods, we found ourselves 

 by the side of a pretty stream that passes the point where we were, 

 not five minutes' walk from our home, well within the city limits 

 of Washington, D. C. We had been hunting for different species 

 of salamanders, and I had rolled over -a good many logs and big 

 stones in the damp and boggy places near this stream, capturing 

 numerous specimens of several species, as the Gray Salamander 

 (Plethodon cinereus); The Red-backed Salamander {P. c. ery- 

 thronotus); the Slimy Salamander (Plethodon glutinosus); the 

 Two-lined or Yellow-backed Salamander (Spelerpes bilineatus) , and 

 others, while, as a matter of fact, I was really searching for a good 

 specimen of the Spotted Salamander {Amhly stoma punetatum), it 

 being a species I had never seen alive, much less collected, although 

 I had hunted for it for many seasons around Washington and in- 

 northern Virginia without success. 



