Nesting Habits of the Pigeon 215 



increase. If the pigeon deposited ten to twenty eggs 

 like the quail the unequal battle of equal survival might 

 be kept up. But even this is to be doubted if the bird 

 continues to nest in colonies. 



Many ornithological writers have written that the 

 wild pigeon lays two eggs as a rule, but these men were 

 evidently not accurate observers, and probably took their 

 records at second-hand. There is no doubt that two 

 eggs are quite often found in a nest, and sometimes 

 these eggs are both fresh, or else equally advanced in 

 incubation. But these instances, I think, are evidences 

 alone that two females have deposited in the same nest, 

 a supposition which is not improbable with the gre- 

 garious species. 



That the wild pigeon may rear two or three young in 

 a season, I do not doubt, and an old trapper and ob- 

 server has offered this theory to explain the condition 

 where there are found both egg and young in the same 

 nest, or squabs of widely varied ages. He asserts that 

 when an egg is about ready to hatch, a second egg was 

 deposited in the nest, and that the squab assisted in in- 

 cubating the egg when the old birds were both away for 

 food, and that in time a third and last egg was laid, so 

 that three young were hatched each season, if the birds 

 are unmolested. 



This peculiarity may exist with the pigeon, but I can 

 add nothing to further it from my own observations, 

 except to record the finding of an egg in the nest with 



