KEEL-BREASTED BIRDS. 



263 



f 



typical form, found east of the central plains of North 

 America. They migrate in communities of millions, cov- 

 ering every limb and branch of forests twenty or thirty 

 miles in extent, breaking down great trees and limbs, 

 rising in the air like clouds, darkening the sun, and creat- 

 ing a sound with their wings like the roaring of a hurri- 

 cane, or of distant thunder ; and so rapid is their flight 

 that they attain a speed of more than a mile a minute. 

 The nests are of twigs rudely placed together, often one 

 hundred in a single tree, in which two eggs are laid, pro- 

 ducing generally a male and female. They are fed with 

 a milky fluid from the stomach of the parents. 



Of all the 

 pigeons of the 

 Old World, the 

 crowned pigeon 

 (Goura victor a) 

 of New Guinea 

 and the toothed 

 pigeon (Didun- 

 culus slrigiros- 

 tris), of the Nav- 

 igator Islands, 

 are most re- 

 markable. 



The famous 

 dodo {Didus in- 

 eptus) (Fig. 297) 



lived upon the Island of Mauritius in 1598, but so com- 

 plete is its extinction by man that it is now only known by 

 a few pictures, bones, feathers, and other parts, in a few 

 museums. It was a pigeon-like bird as large as a swan, 

 with an enormous hooked bill and rudimentary feathers. 



The solitaire (D. solitarius) and Nazarene (D, nazare- 

 nus) are other allies that have disappeared within com- 

 paratively a few .years. 



FIG. 297. Dodo, an extinct giant pigeon. 



