126 
PIGEON. 
reclaimed), and usually live congregated in extensive 
flocks, except during the season of reproduction when 
they pair. Most of the species seek their food 
upon the ground. This consists of the dififereut cerea- 
lia, as also acorns, beech-mast, and other seeds, and 
occasionally of the green and tender leaves of parti- 
cular plants. Their flesh is sapid and nutritious, 
being of a warm and invigorating nature. Their 
flight is powerful, very rapid, and can bo long sus- 
tained, and many species are in the habit of making 
distant periodical migrations. They are widely dis- 
seminated, species of the genus being found in every 
quarter of the globe, and in all climates except the 
frozen regions of the two hemispheres. They build 
in trees or holes of rocks, making a shallow nest of 
small twigs loosely put together. Their eggs are never 
more than two in number, their colour a pure white, 
these are incubated alternately by both sexes, and 
are hatched after being sat upon from eighteen to 
twenty-one days. The young, upon exclusion, are 
thinly covered with down, which is rapidly succeed- 
ed by the proper feathers. For some time after 
birth they are fed with a milky half-digested puln, 
disgorged into their mouth by their parents, whose 
“ craw, at this period, is furnished w'ith certain 
glands,” to aid in reducing their food to this neces 
sary consistency. 
As nearly allied to the arboreal species already de- 
scribed, and connecting them with the typical Pi- 
geons, our next plate represents the 
