32 THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 



touch, as has been remarked to be the case in the Carolina Turtle-dove. I 

 have only to add, that this species, like others of the same genus, immerses 

 its head up to the eyes while drinking. 



In March 1S30, I bought about 350 of these birds in the market of New- 

 York, at four cents a piece. Most of these I carried alive to England, and 

 distributed them amongst several noblemen, presenting some at the same 

 time to the Zoological Society. 



This celebrated bird is mentioned by Dr. Richardson as "annually 

 reaching the 62nd degree of latitude, in the warm central districts of the 

 Fur Countries, and attaining the 5Sth parallel on the coast of Hudson's Bay 

 in very fine summers only. Mr. Hutchins mentions a flock which visited 

 York Factory and remained there two days, in 1775, as a very remarkable 

 occurrence. A few hordes of Indians that frequent the low flooded tracts at 

 the south end of Lake Winnipeg, subsist principally on the Pigeons, during 

 a part of the summer, when the sturgeon-fishery is unproductive, and the 

 Zizania aquatica has not yet ripened; but farther north, these birds are 

 too few in number to furnish a material article of diet." Mr. Townsend 

 states that this species is found on the Rocky Mountains, but not on the 

 Columbia river, where the Band-tailed Pigeon, Columba fasciata of Say, 

 is abundant. Whilst in the Texas, I was assured that the Passenger Pigeon 

 was plentiful there, although at irregular intervals. In the neighbourhood 

 of Boston it arrives, as Dr. T. M. Brewer informs me, in small scattered 

 flocks, much less numerous than in the interior of that State. 



My friend Dr. Bachman says, in a note sent to me, "In the more culti- 

 vated parts of the United States, these birds now no longer breed in com- 

 munities. I have secured many nests scattered throughout the woods, seldom 

 near each other. Four years ago, I saw several on the mountains east of 

 Lansinburgh, in the State of New York. They were built close to the stems 

 of thin but tall pine trees (Pinus strobus), and were composed of a few 

 sticks; the eggs invariably two, and white. There is frequently but one 

 young bird in the nest, probably from the loose manner in which it has been 

 constructed, so that either a young bird or an egg drops out. Indeed, I have 

 found both at the foot of the tree. This is no doubt accidental, and not to 

 be attributed to a habit which the bird may be supposed to have of throwing 

 out an egg or one of its young. I have frequently taken two of the latter 

 from the same nest and reared them. The Wild Pigeons appear in Carolina 

 during winter at irregular periods, sometimes in cold, but often in warm 

 weather, driven here no doubt, as you have mentioned, not by the cold, but 

 by a failure of mast in the western forests." 



A curious change of habits has taken place in England in those Pigeons 

 which I presented to the Earl of Derby in 1830, that nobleman having 



