424 ' The Plover-like Birds 



scrubs. It is a handsome, graceful bird, about seventeen inches in length, 

 chestnut-brown above and cinnamon-rufous below, with orange and purplish 

 reflections on the back of the head and neck. It is an exceedingly tame bird, 

 often seen in small parties on the road picking up seeds, or perched on low 

 branches by the wayside. It is especially fond of the berries of the ink-weed 

 (Phytolacca), and even when shot at returns in a short time to the same spot. 

 Although a common bird, its nest has been but rarely found, and it may possibly 

 prefer the seclusion of the dense forests. Such nests as have been discovered 

 were usually placed in the dense top of a tree-fern and were quite large and well- 

 made affairs. The eggs, one or two in number, are glossy white and brittle- 

 shelled. In the two remaining genera of this group the bill is very thick and 

 almost hooked at the tip, while the tail is much graduated. In Reinwardtcenas, 

 of which five species are now known ranging from the Celebes to New Guinea, 

 the head is not crested, while in Coryphcenas with its single species from the 

 Solomon Islands, there is a prominent occipital crest. But little is known of 

 the habits of any of these. 



Passenger Pigeon. The final group (Ectopistina;) of the subfamily is repre- 

 sented by a single genus and species, the well-known Wild or Passenger Pigeon 

 (Ecto pistes migratorius] of eastern North America, though occasionally ranging 

 west to the Pacific. It is a large, handsome bird, sixteen or seventeen inches 

 long, with a graduated tail nearly as long as the wing, the feathers of which are 

 narrow and pointed at the tips, thus differing from the members of the last 

 group. The male is a rich bluish slate-color above and deep vinaceous below, 

 passing into vinaceous pinkish on the sides and pure white on the lower abdomen 

 and the under side of the tail, while the nape and side of the neck are glossed 

 with a changeable metallic reddish purple, and the back and shoulders are 

 washed with reddish brown and spotted with black. The female is similar but 

 with the head more brownish gray, the under part grayish, and tl^e neck less 

 iridescent. 



The Passenger Pigeon presents one of the marvels of bird life. A century 

 ago, when the country was new and less settled, this bird, so wonderful for its 

 gregarious habits, existed in flocks of such gigantic proportions that the numbers 

 appear absolutely incredible. Thus Wilson, one of America's pioneer orni- 

 thologists, writing about 1808, estimated that a flock observed by him near 

 Frankfort, Kentucky, contained not less than 2,230,272,000 birds, and Audubon 

 five years later saw them at Henderson in the same state passing for three suc- 

 cessive days in a practically continuous flock; " the air was literally filled with 

 Pigeons, the light of noonday was obscured as by an eclipse," and the rush of 

 wings was " with a noise like thunder." The general roosting places of these 

 vast hordes were usually located in the tallest and densest forests and presented 

 a curious and interesting spectacle. As they are birds of very powerful flight, 

 they apparently often ranged several hundred miles away during the day, but 

 as the sun began to decline they departed in a body for the roost. "Nothing," 

 says Nuttall, " can exceed the waste and desolation of the nocturnal resorts; 

 the vegetation becomes buried by their excrement to the depth of several inches. 



