CHAPTER XXV 

 ORDER OF PIGEONS AND DOVES 



COLUMBAE 



THE PASSENGER PIGEON l is now a bird of history, because 

 it is now to be 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 ago remember the flocks that flew 

 swiftly over the farms, sometimes fifty and sometimes two 

 hundred or more birds together. It w^as a wonderful sight 

 to see the perfect mechanical precision with which they kept 

 together, wheeling and circling in as perfect formation as the 

 slats 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. Its 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 coast is a totally different species. 



In the early days Ohio seemed to be the centre of abun- 

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

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

 trees that branches were broken by their weight; how they 



1 Ec-to-pis'tes mi-gra-to'ri-us. Average length, about 16 inches. 



84 



