MOURNING-DOVES. 375 
met with singly or in small parties in the woods. Such stragglers attract little 
attention, and no one attempts to net them, although many are shot. The largest 
nesting he ever visited was in 1876 or 1877. It began near Petosky, and extended 
north-east past Crooked Lake for twenty-eight miles, averaging three or four miles 
wide. The birds arrived in two separate bodies, one directly from the south by 
land, the other following the east coast of Wisconsin, and crossing at Maniton 
Island. He saw the latter body come in from the lake at about three o’clock in the 
afternoon. It was a compact mass of pigeons, at least five miles long by one mile 
wide. The birds began building when the snow was twelve inches deep in the 
woods, although the fields were bare at the time. So rapidly did the colony 
extend its boundaries, that it soon passed literally over and around the place where 
he was netting, although, when he began, this point was several miles from 
the nearest nest. Nestings usually start in deciduous woods, but during their 
progress the pigeons do not skip any kind of trees they encounter. The Petosky 
nesting extended eight miles through hardwood timber, then crossed a river bottom 
wooded with arborvite, and thence stretched through white pine woods about 
twenty miles. For the entire distance of twenty-eight miles every tree of any 
size had more or less nests, and many trees were filled with them. None were 
lower than about fifteen feet above the ground. Pigeons are very noisy when 
building. They make a sound resembling the croaking of wood-frogs. Their 
combined clamour can be heard four or five miles away when the atmospheric 
conditions are favourable. Two eggs are usually laid, but many nests contain 
only one. Both birds incubate, the female between 2 o’clock P.M. and 9 or 10 
o’clock the next morning; the males from 9 or 10 o'clock A.M. to 2 o'clock P.M. 
The males feed twice each day, namely, from daylight to about 8 o'clock A.m., and 
again late in the afternoon. The females feed only during the forenoon.” 
THE GROUND-PIGEONS. 
Family PERISTERIDZ. 
In contradistinction to the preceding groups, which may be collectively 
spoken of as tree-pigeons, we now come to a family whose members live much on 
the ground. This family of ground-pigeons, which includes almost all the remaining 
species, is distinguished from the tree-pigeons by having the legs equal to or longer 
than the middle toe. Seven subfamilies are recognised, in the first six of which 
the feathers of the neck are never hackled. 
The group of mourning-doves (Zenaidine), distinguished by 
having a blackish, more or less metallic, spot below the ear-coverts, 
includes thirteen rather small American species, placed in four genera; the first 
(Zenaidura) resembling the two following ones in having the scapulars and upper 
wing-coverts spotted with black. It further agrees with the next genus (Zenaida) 
in the tail being composed of fourteen feathers, and the bill nearly straight, but 
differs in having the tail longer and generally wedge-shaped. All the three 
species are North and Central American, the best known being the mourning- 
dove (Z. carolinensis) of the United States, Central America, and the West 
Mourning-Doves. 
