336 WILD PIGEONS AND DOVES 



partridge shooting, a little more difficult, since the 

 doves arise at a longer range. 



There are in all twelve pigeons and doves in North 

 America. They are all good game birds, but most of 

 them are comparatively rare, having a limited range, 

 like the plumed and crested partridges. 



Only two of these birds are known to Eastern sports- 

 men, the passenger pigeon, now extinct, and the Caro- 

 lina dove. The band-tailed pigeon is very common on 

 the Pacific slope. The others are given but little 

 space, since they are only seldom shot by sportsmen, 

 and in fact but little is known about some of them. 



THE MOURNING DOVE; CAROLINA DOVE 



There is no more reason for calling the common 

 wild dove the Carolina than there is for calling the 

 Bob-white the Virginia partridge. This dove is found 

 throughout the United States, from the Atlantic to the 

 Pacific. In the summer it is quite tame, like the par- 

 tridge. Doves build their nests in the spring about 

 the farms, often in the orchard trees quite near the 

 house. I had a pair several seasons in an apple-tree 

 not fifty feet from my door. On the great plains of 

 the West the doves, in the absence of trees, build their 

 nests on the ground. 



The dove is marked somewhat like the wild pigeon 

 and has the same long wings and tail and flies with 

 great rapidity. The noise made is not a whirring, but 

 a whistling noise, which is more pronounced in the 

 dove than in any other of the game birds, excepting 

 possibly, the golden-eye, often called the whistler. It 

 is of a gray -blue color above and has a dull red breast. 



