THE PIGEONS AND DOVES 



(Family Columbldae) 



BY A. A. ALLEN, PH.D. 



ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ORNITHOLOGY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY 



IN these days of world strife, nothing could be less 

 appropriate than a story about doves. The emblem 

 of peace and gentleness finds but scant welcome 

 while forests are devastated while cathedrals smoulder, 

 and while women and children are slaughtered through 

 the barbarism of a so-called civilized nation. From 

 another point of view, however, a few paragraphs upon 

 real doves might be quite timely because, during the 

 past two years, so many vultures have taken flight from 

 German soil in the guise of doves of peace. But this is 

 not an article upon doves of peace, nor German doves, 

 but upon the doves of United States and Canada, and 

 though the 

 American dove 

 will eventfully 

 follow the 

 eagle across 

 the sea, it is 

 not the pur- 

 pose of these 

 paragraphs to 

 trace its flight. 



To begin 

 with, there is 

 no real differ- 

 ence between 

 doves and 

 pigeons. The 

 word dove is 

 ordinarily ap- 

 plied to the 

 smaller species 

 but often the 

 two terms are 

 used inter- 

 changeably. 

 Thus the bird 

 from which 

 our domestic 

 pigeon has 

 been derived 

 is most gener- 

 ally called the blue rock pigeon or the rock dove. 



In general, pigeons and doves can be distinguished 

 from other birds by their small heads, heavy bodies and 

 compact plumage. They have slerder bills which are 

 swollen at the tip and covered at the base by a soft 

 fleshy skin called a cere. Their wings are long and 

 pointed but their legs are relatively short so that while 

 they are extremely strong fliers, they walk with short 

 mincing steps. Their tails are always well developed 

 and may be either square, rounded or pointed. Some 

 confine the name pigeon to the square-tailed birds and 

 the name dove to those with rounded or pointed tails 



THE EMBLEM OF PEACE AND GENTLENESS 



This shows a mourning dove at its nest. The members of the family have many distinctive characteris- 

 tics of form and plumage. Indeed the Hohenzollerns are having difficulty in disguising the Prussian 

 Eagle in the plumage of a dove. The feathers are too short to conceal its form. 



but this is by no means universal, the passenger pigeon, 

 for example, having a decidedly pointed tail. 



There are about 650 species of pigeons and they are 

 found in all parts of the world except Arctic and 

 Antarctic regions, being most abundant in the tropics, 

 especially in the region of the Malay archipelago, where 

 possibly they may have originated. 



Because of their defenselessness, pigeons are particu- 

 lar adapted to island life where enemies are few. This 

 may account for their great abundance in the Polynesian 

 Islands and also for the brilliant and conspicuous plum- 

 age of those species. For, while the majority of conti- 

 nental species 

 are bluish or 

 brownish, 

 many of these 

 island species 

 are strikingly 

 brilliant and 

 varied in their 

 plumage, reds, 

 greens and 

 purples occur- 

 ring in won- 

 derful combi- 

 nation. 



Isolation 

 likewise a c- 

 counts for such 

 anomalous 

 pigeons as the 

 extinct dodo 

 and solitaire 

 o f Mauritius 

 and Rodriguez. 

 These curious, 

 heavy - bodied 

 birds had en- 

 tirely lost the 

 power of flight 

 because of the 

 absence of ter- 

 restrial enemies on the islands which they inhabited. 

 This made them an easy prey for the first explorers 

 that found them, causing their early extermination. 



In size, pigeons vary from the tiny ground doves, 

 some of which are smaller than sparrows, to the crowned 

 pigeons which measure from two to nearly three feet 

 in length, or the aforementioned dodo which was de- 

 scribed by its discoverers as "bigger than our swans." 

 Pigeons vary greatly in habits, and in the choice of 

 their haunts. Some species live in large flocks, while 

 others are solitary ; some inhabit the dense forests, others 

 the open plains ; some are terrestrial and rarely fly while 



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