UIAITKI! XXV 



ORDEB OF PIGEONS AM) DOVES 



( of i mi; 1/ 



THE Passi ngeb Pigeon 1 is now a bird of history, because 

 it i> now to !•«• regarded as a species totally extinct, save 

 For one aged specimen now living in a zoological garden and 

 destined soon to pass away. The men who lived in the Mis- 

 sissippi Valley fifty years au r <> remember the Hocks thai Hew 

 swiftly over tin- farms, sometimes fifty and sometimes two 

 hundred or more birds together. It was a wonderful sighl 

 i.i see the perfect mechanical precision with which they kepi 

 together, wheeling and circling in as perfecl formation as the 

 slal s of a Venetian blind. 



This vanished bird was much larger than a dove. Its 

 color was bluish above, and reddish brown underneath, and 

 the feathers of its neck had a rich metallic lustre, lis tail 

 was long and pointed, and its feet and legs were red. It 

 never was found in the far West, and never will be. The 

 pigeon of the Pacific coasl i-< a totally differenl species. 



In the early days Ohio seemed to lie the centre ol abun- 

 dance of this bird, and the accounts thai have been written 

 of that period relate how the Pigeons sal so thickly upon the 

 trees thai branches were broken by their weight; how they 



Ec-to-pis'tes ini-ijra-tn'ri-iis. Average length, about \c> inch< 



