54 BIRDS OF PENNSYLVANIA. 



time, the picking up of the dead and wounded being left for the 

 next morning's employment. The pigeons were constantly com- 

 ing, and it was past midnight before I perceived a decrease in 

 the number of those that arrived. The uproar continued the whole 

 night, and as I was anxious to know to what distance the sound 

 reached, I sent off a man, accustomed to perambulate the forest, who, 

 returning two hours afterward, informed me he had heard it distinctly 

 when three miles distant from the spot. Towards the approach of 

 day, the noise in some measure subsided; long before objects were 

 distinguishable, the Pigeons began to move off in a direction quite 

 different from that in which they had arrived the evening before, and 

 at sunrise all that were able to fly had disappeared. The bowlings of 

 the wolves now reached our ears, and the foxes, lynxes, cougars, bears, 

 raccoons, opossums and polecats were seen sneaking off, whilst eagles 

 and hawks of different species, accompanied by a crowd of vultures, 

 came to supplant them, and enjoy their share of the spoil. It was 

 then that the authors of all this devastation began their entry amongst 

 the dead, the dying and the mangled. The Pigeons were picked up 

 and piled in heaps, until each had as many as. he could possibly dis- 

 pose of, when the hogs were let loose to feed on the remainder." 



GENUS ZENAIDTJRA. BONAPARTE. 

 316. Zenaidura macroura (LINN.). 



Mourning Dove; Turtle Dove. 



DESCRIPTION. 



Tail feathers, 14. Above bluish, although this is overlaid with light brownish 

 olive, leaving the blue pure only on the top of the head, the exterior of the wings, 

 and upper surface of the tail, which is even slightly tinged with this color; the entire 

 head, except the vertex, the sides of the neck, and the under parts generally, light 

 brownish-red, strongly tinged with purple on the breast, becoming lighter behind, 

 and passing into brownish-yellow on the anal region, tibia and under tail coverts ; 

 sides of the neck with a patch of metallic purplish-red ; sides of body and inside < >f 

 wings clear light-blue ; wing coverts and scapulars spotted with black, mostly con- 

 cealed, and an oblong patch of the same below the ear ; tail feathers seen from bo- 

 low blackish, the outer web of outermost white, the others tipped with the same, 

 the color becoming more and more bluish to the innermost, which is brown ; soon 

 from above, there is the same graduation from white to light-blue in the tips ; tiio 

 rest of the feather, however, is blue, with a bar of black anterior to the light tip, 

 which runs a little forward along the margin and shaft of the feather ; in the sixth 

 feather the color is uniform bluish, with this bar ; the seventh is without bar ; bill, 

 black ; feet, purplish-red. Female somewhat smaller, with less red beneath ; me- 

 tallic purplish-red of neck less distinct; black spot below the ear smaller, and of a 

 brownish hue. Young very similar to female, but duller in color and lack the me- 

 tallic markings on sides of neck. 



Length of male, 12.85 inches; extent, about 18; wing, 5.75; tail, 6.70 inches. 



Hob. North America, from southern Maine, southern Canada and Oregon south 

 to Panama and the West Indies. 



