BAND-TAILED PIGEON 581 



manzanita thickets on the mountain side. They would arrive daily a 

 little after sunrise and leave between eight and nine o'clock; in the 

 evening they would return about four and depart again at dusk. In 

 feeding in the bushes they often attempted to alight on clusters of 

 berries whose stems were far too weak to support the heavy birds. 

 Eventually, finding a firmer perch from which the berries could be 

 reached, a pigeon would gorge himself, accompanying his greedy 

 swallowing of the berries with gulping noises. In Arizona similar 

 actions were indulged in by pigeons which Willard (1916, p. Ill)- 

 saw feeding in oaks. He says : ' ' The antics of these birds were more 

 like the acrobatic stunts of parrots than of pigeons. They would 

 walk out on the slender branches till they tipped down, then, hang- 

 ing by their feet, would secure an acorn, and drop off to alight on a 

 branch lower down. In spite of their large size, pigeons are surpris- 

 ingly inconspicuous when thus engaged in feeding among the leaves. ' ' 



The Band-tailed Pigeon nests in isolated localities and never in 

 colonies as did its unfortunate eastern relative, the Passenger Pigeon. 

 To this habit it probably owes, in a large degree, its ability to with- 

 stand the heavy hunting to which it has been subjected. One au- 

 thentic report from Arizona states that about thirty-five pairs nested 

 in a "scattered rookery, probably not averaging a nest to every 

 three or four acres at the most thickly populated part'' (Fowler, 1903, 

 p. 69) ; but such an occurrence has not been recorded from California. 

 The nests here are widely scattered and extremely difficult to locate. 

 The greatest number of occupied nests reported by any Californian 

 observer for a single day's search is two, and about three per season 

 seems to be the limit of one man's discovery. The accompanying 

 table (no. 18, from Grinnell, 1913, with additions and corrections) 

 gives all the definite nesting data for California known to the writers. 



Nearly all authentic reports from California agree in stating that 

 the Band-tailed Pigeon nests in trees — almost invariably in black 

 or golden oaks — at heights ranging from eight to thirty feet above 

 the ground. As exceptions, Littlejohn (MS) found a nest in San 

 Mateo County in a Douglas spruce ; and in Marin County, J. Mailliard 

 (1912, p. 194) found a nest in a California lilac (Ceanoihus thyrsi- 

 florus) overhanging a steep slope. Some early reports from this state 

 have mentioned ground nests, as have several more recent, but scarcely 

 trustworthy, accounts from Oregon and Washington ; but there is 

 no late evidence of the ground nesting habit in California. In a 

 general way the nest resembles that of the Mourning Dove, save 

 that it is considerably larger, and sometimes proportionately thicker. 

 It is a crude structure, a mere pile of oak and other twigs, so loosely 

 arranged that attempts to remove the mass often result in its falling 

 to pieces. The average diameter is six or eight inches, while the thick- 



