BAND-TAILED PIGEON 587 



will remove the disagreeable taste. After such treatment the birds 

 should be broiled, or baked in a pot pie. 



The remarkably slow rate of increase in the Pigeon was doubtless 

 great enough 'to maintain its numbers easily under the conditions 

 obtaining before the appearance of the white man and his firearms. 

 We can but marvel at the ability the bird has shown to maintain itself 

 in fair numbers during the last fifty or sixty years, in spite of unre- 

 stricted hunting. Judging from recorded accounts, it is only at rare 

 intervals that such a slaughter has taken place as that noted in the 

 south-central coast counties of this state in the winter of 1911-12 

 (Chambers, 1912, p. 108). Indeed, as suggested by the writer cited, 

 such unmitigated destruction could not last long without causing a 

 complete extinction of the species. Chambers ' account is as follows : 



Band-tailed Pigeons . . . were abundant the past winter from Paso Robles 

 south to Nordhoff all through the coast range of mountains. One hunter from 

 Los Olivos shipped over 2,000 birds to the San Francisco and Los Angeles hotels. 

 The morning train from San Luis Obispo to Los Olivos on Sundays averaged 100 

 passengers who came to hunt pigeons. A prominent hunter [stated] . . . that 

 these passengers averaged about thirty birds apiece per day. This would make 

 this one day's excursion [account for] over 3,000 pigeons. Now! — this is [the 

 record for] only one train and one day's hunting. One can hardly calculate the 

 number of birds killed by hunters in automobiles and by those who started from 

 Los Angeles, San Praneisco, Santa Barbara, Ventura, Santa Maria, Paso Bobles, 

 Ijompoc and other small towns. ... I honestly believe that the people will 

 never again see such a flight of Band-tailed Pigeons. In Nordhoff it is the largest 

 they have ever seen, and the birds evidently hung around until they were simply 

 shot out. 



An unusual concentration of the pigeons from the whole Pacific 

 coast region into a distt-ict easily reached by hunters gave exceptional 

 opportunity for the infliction of the slaughter above recounted. This 

 weak feature in the pigeon's mode of life becomes apparent when con- 

 ditions of restricted food supply force it into localities where its 

 survival depends upon the sanity of hunting regulations. 



The ability of the Band-tailed Pigeon to maintain itself even in 

 moderate numbers is due to many factors, among which the following 

 are important. The birds repair to mountainous forested regions for 

 the breeding season ; they nest in widely separated localities and rarely 

 if ever in colonies ; they are secretive and give few if any clues to the 

 location of their nests ; and during the winter months when they are 

 as a rule widely distributed in the foothills and valleys of the state, 

 they do not occur regularly in the same places in successive years. 



The five-year closed season which began in 1913 was entirely satis- 

 factory in that it allowed the birds to begin to recuperate from the 

 disastrous effects of the 1912 slaughter. If, in 1918, after the termin- 

 ation of the close season, a shooting season is to be permitted, the 



