AMERICAN ORNITHOLOGY. 



* 



ORDER IV. COLUMB^E. COLUMBINE. 



GENUS 48. COLUMBA. PIGEON. 



SPECIES 1. C. MIGRATORIrf. 



PASSENGER PIGEON. 



[Plate XLIV. Fig. 1.] 



CATESB. i, 23. LINN. Syst. 285. TURTON, 479. JLrct. Zool. 

 p. 322, 7Vb. 187. BRISSON, i, 100. BUFF. n,527. PEALE'S 

 Museum, JVo. 5084.* 



THIS remarkable bird merits a distinguished place in the an- 

 nals of our feathered tribes; a claim to which I shall endeavour 

 to do justice; and though it would be impossible, in the bounds 

 allotted to this account, to relate all I have seen and heard of 

 this species, yet no circumstance shall be omitted with which 

 I am acquainted, (however extraordinary some of these may 

 appear) that may tend to illustrate its history. 



The Wild Pigeon of the United States inhabits a wide and 

 extensive region of North America, on this side of the Great 

 Stony mountains, beyond which to the westward, I have not 

 heard of their being seen. 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 cov- 

 ered with snow, on the buds of juniper. They spread over the 

 whole of Canada were seen by captain Lewis and his party 

 near the Great Falls of the Missouri, upwards of two thousand 

 five hundred miles from its mouth, reckoning the meanderings 



* Columba migraloria, LATH. Ind. Orn. p. 612, ^b. 70. 



VOL. III. B 



