144 BEHAVIOR OF PIGEONS. 



FEAR. 



If one or more doves become frightened at night and flutter in the attempt to go through 

 the window or wire netting of the pen, the fright is thereby communicated to other doves 

 in the same room or within hearing. One night, at 1 or 2 o'clock, a young mourning-dove, 

 about 4 weeks old, got startled and flew against the window, fluttering vigorously. The 

 fright became general, and two quite tame mourning-doves at the opposite side of the room 

 were so alarmed that both dashed violently against the wire, the female leaving her eggs. 

 A pair of tiger turtles were sitting at the same time; the male left his perch and was found 

 on the floor; the female of this pair was badly frightened, but did not leave her eggs. I 

 have several times seen a whole room full of ring-doves fearfully frightened by the fluttering 

 of a wild passenger-pigeon, though the ring-doves were perfectly tame. Fright by night, 

 when the bird can not see the cause of the disturbance, is often extreme and easily communi- 

 cated. Wildness also is often communicated by example. A single wild dove among a 

 dozen tame ones will often turn them all wild, just as a tame dove will often help in taming 

 wild ones. 



Four of my passenger pigeons have never had their freedom, having been raised by 

 Mr. Whittaker, and although only 3 or 4 years old, they have behaved as if terror-stricken, 

 and their fear has disappeared only very gradually and so slowly that I can but wonder 

 at it. A mourning-dove which I obtained from Florida was far less timid and learned to 

 eat from my hand with confidence in a few days. But the passenger-pigeons, although 

 I have compelled them to accept all their food from the hand, were very difficult to manage 

 at first, and to this day they have not lost their fear of me. They were taught to eat 

 quite readily from the hand, but they watched every movement of my person and often 

 tried to get through the wire screen of the coop. At first, in order to break them in, I 

 kept them in a large cage near my writing desk and spent much time in trying to get them 

 accustomed to me. For weeks I could not go to the cage without alarming them; they 

 would dash against the wire so recklessly in trying to get away that they broke off the ends 

 of their wing-quills and tail-feathers, and made their wings bleed from the wounds caused 

 by flapping against the wire. I have lately allowed them to eat from the shelf and they have 

 grown wilder, so that they now refuse to eat from my hand. 



A young G. humeralis (7 weeks old) had been separated from its nest-mate soon after 

 hatching and placed under the care of ring-doves. To-day I brought the two together. 

 The one that had been under the care of the ring-doves was terrified at the sight of its own 

 mate and raised its wings and bristled up for defense. This occurred toward night. I left 

 the two together in a pen by themselves. The two still kept apart the next morning, or 

 rather the one brought up under its own parents seemed not to fear the other much, but 

 the other continued to manifest great fear. This fact shows two things : The one brought 

 up under its parents, and familiar with its own species, saw no cause for alarm in its mate; 

 but the latter, brought up with ring-doves, recognized its mate of its own species as a 

 stranger and an enemy. These two birds were kept by themselves in a cage and after 4 days 

 they finally got acquainted and roosted together side by side. 1 (R 23, SS 4, R 7.) 



FOOD. 



I have noticed that the Ectopistes parents, especially the female, searches the ground 

 over and over, looking under the plants and along the edge of the boards. Is she hunting 

 for worms or insects? Whatever the object may be, I have seen both male and female 

 on the ground searching and working in the grass with the beak, as if to find worms. On 

 a later occasion I placed a handful of earthworms in the food-dish of a cage containing an 



'That the alarmed white-faced pigeon (Leucosarciui aitnnpls to "hide" by lowering the breast and head to the 

 ground -standing still, with tail raised toward the source of danger has already been mentioned (Chapter V, topic, 

 Hiding on Nest). In the case there cited a young bird of only 18 days displayed this behavior. EDITOR. 



