PIGEONS. 



253 



graceful bird, walks on the ground with ease, and rises on the wing without much loud 

 flapping. It will raise two or three broods in a season, placing its nest in the hollow 

 of a tree, sometimes in rabbit-burrows or other convenient holes in the ground. 

 Both sexes incubate and assist in rearing their young. It feeds on various grains and 

 seeds, and when numerous is very troublesome to farmers. 



A remarkably colored pigeon of this genus is C. leuconota from the northwest 

 Himmalehs. The back, neck, and rump are white ; the top of head and ear-coverts 





FIG. 121. Columba cenas, stock-pigeon, and C.palumbus, ring-dove. 



ashy black, wings brownish gray, crossed with three or four dusky bars. Tail ashy 

 black, crossed by a broad grayish white bar. This is the snow-pigeon and imperial 

 rock-pigeon of sportsmen. It frequents rocky heights and sequestered valleys from an 

 altitude of 10,000 feet to the snow level. It feeds in the fields, returning to the rocks 

 to roost, and is shy and wary. C. guinea and C. arquatrix (sometimes placed in a 

 genus called Stictcenas), are African species of about twelve inches in length, the 

 former with a cinereous or plumbeous plumage, with the neck, breast, back, shoulders 

 and wing-coverts vinaceous, the latter spotted with white ; the tail is black. It is a 



