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FAMILY — COLUMBID.ffi. TRUE PIGEONS AND DOVES. 



Pigeons and Doves can in a general way be said to resemble in outline 

 and actions our familiar domestic stock. Characters are more easily 

 felt than described. Systematically they can be recognized by their 

 bills. These are hard and horny at the tip, which is very slightly enlarged. 

 The basal half is furnished with a soft, slightly swollen membrane in 

 which the nostrils open (Figure 35, p. 24). The legs and feet are weak, 

 fitted only for walking over small level areas or for simple perching. Our 

 common domestic Pigeons, descended from the Rock Dove of Europe, 

 show all the most distinctive characters of the family. There are no 

 recognizable or taxonomic differences between the so-called Pigeons and 

 Doves. 



Genus — Ectopistes. Passenger Pigeon. 



315. Passenger Pigeon, wild pigeon, pb. — le pigeon voyageub. Ectopistes 

 migratorius. L, 16-29. Plate XI A. 



Distinctions. The Mourning Dove is so often taken for this species that the two 

 should be diagnosed with care. The Pigeon is a considerably larger bird; the breast is 

 distinctly ruddy and the head and upperparts are slate-blue in the male. The female 

 is without the strong blue on the back, but the head retains a bluish shade that is never 

 present in the Mourning Dove, which is more evenly fawn coloured and has a small black 

 spot on the side of the neck just below the ear. 



Field Marks. As this species is now extinct, field marks are unnecessary. 



Nesting. The Passenger Pigeon built a rough nest of sticks in trees, in large com- 

 munities. 



Distribution. Bred in the wooded sections of most of Canada east of the mountains 

 and south to the middle United States, wintered in the southern United States and beyond. 



The immense flocks of Passenger Pigeons that once darkened the air 

 were one of the wonders of America. The descriptions of their number, if 

 they were not circumstantial and well vouched for by men of undoubted 

 veracity, would sound like wild stretches of the imagination: flocks, so 

 dense that haphazard shots into them would bring down numbers, travelled 

 rapidly with a front miles in width and so long that it took hours to pass a 

 given point. Audubon estimates one such flock as containing over a 

 billion birds, basing his figures upon the density and area of the congre- 

 gation and not by mere guess. They bred in dense rookeries where their 

 weight often broke the branches from forest trees. Trees containing 

 their nests were cut down and though each nest contained only one squab 

 there were so many that the pigs were turned in to feed upon them. Later, 

 the netting of pigeons was the occupation of professional fowlers who 

 shipped their proceeds by the car-load to the centres of population. Of 

 course, not even the immense numbers of the Passenger Pigeons could 

 stand such attacks without diminution. To suggest a halt in the proceed- 

 ings at that time, however, aroused nothing but amusement. Their num- 

 bers were held to be inexhaustible, but today the species is extinct and the 

 last one, a captive bird, died in Cincinnati a short time ago. The last great 

 rookery was near Petoskey, Mich. In the autumn of 1878 the birds left 

 on their usual migration, but failed to return in any commercial 

 number the following spring. For a few years afterwards occasional small 

 flocks were seen and isolated rookeries were reported, but as the fowlers 

 investigated each case it became apparent that the netting of pigeons as an 

 occupation was a thing of the past. Thereafter, the birds became fewer 



