THE CAROLINA TURTLE-DOVE. 39 



friend has found this species breeding on the ground in the States of New 

 York and South Carolina, among tall wheat and rye. In the latter country 

 it is very numerous during winter, and is shot in great numbers by sports- 

 men, who hide themselves under low huts at the foot of moderately tall 

 trees, such as persimons, while their servants drive the Doves from the 

 adjacent fields. In this manner more than a hundred have been shot by one 

 man in the course of a morning. When snow is on the ground, wonderful 

 havoc is committed among them, and he has heard of a party of sportsmen 

 having shot about five hundred in one day. 



The egg of the Carolina Dove measures one inch one-eighth in length, by 

 five and a half eighths in breadth, is equally rounded at both ends, and is of 

 a pure white colour, somewhat translucent. 



The Staartia Malacodendron, on which I have placed the two pairs 

 alluded to at the commencment of this article, is a tree of small height, 

 which grows in rich grounds at the foot of hills not far from water-courses. 

 The wood is brittle and useless, the flower destitute of scent, but extremely 

 agreeable to the eye. Little clusters of twenty or thirty of these trees are 

 dispersed over the southernmost of the United States. I have never met 

 with it in the Middle, Western or Northern Districts. 



Colcmba carolinensis, Linn. Syst. Nat., vol. L p. 286. 



Carolina Pigeon or Turtle-Dove, Columba carolinensis, Wils. Amer. Orn., vol. v. 



p. 91. 

 Columba carolinensis, Bonap. Syn., p. 119. 

 Carolina Pigeon or Turtle-Dove, Nutt. Man., vol. i. p. 626. 

 Carolina Turtle-Dove, Columba carolinensis, Aud. Orn. Biog., vol. i. p. 91; vol. v. 



p. 555. 



Male, 12, 17. Female, 11, 15 J. 



Breeds from Texas to Massachusetts, and throughout the interior to the 

 eastern bases of the Rocky Mountains, and again on the Columbia river. 

 Common. Resident in all the Southern Districts. 



Adult Male. 



Bill straight, of ordinary length, rather slender, broader than deep at the 

 base, with a tumid fleshy covering, compressed towards the end, rather 

 obtuse; upper mandible slightly declinate at the tip; edges involute. Head 

 small. Neck slender. Body rather full. Legs short and strong; tarsus 

 covered anteriorly with scutella, rather rounded; toes scutellate, slightly 

 webbed at the base; claws short, depressed, obtuse. 



Plumage compact on the back, blended and soft on the head, neck and 

 under parts. Wings long, second quill longest. Tail wedge-shaped, long, 

 of fourteen feathers, the middle ones tapering, the rest obtuse. 



Bill blackish, at the base carmine-purple. Iris hazel; orbit greenish-blue. 



