i6 
THE CONDOR 
I VOL. V 
The Band-tailed Pigeon in San Diego County. 
BY C. S. SHARP, ESCONDIDO, CAL. 
HE band-tailed pigeon {Columba fasciata) is a pretty regular winter visitant to 
the foot-hills of San Diego county, frequently coming down to the Escondido 
Valley in bands of fifteen or twenty when driven out by the snows above, but 
generall}^ staying in the outlying orchards and grain fields near the hills. I have 
heard from several persons that they nest regularly on Palomar and the Cuyamaca 
Mts., but had no personal knowledge of such an occurrence. 
This past season, however, while spending a few days with my friends. J. S. and 
J. B. Dixon at their ranch on Pine Mt., some twenty miles east from here, my sup- 
position was made a certainty. On May ii, while on a hunt in their company near 
the top of Pine Mt., a bird was flushed by Mr. J. B. Dixon from its nest in a medium 
sized black oak tree. The nest, which contained one egg, incubation well advanced, 
was on an almost horizontal fork of two medium sized branches at an elevation of 
twenty-nine feet, and was quite as poorly constructed as the average nest of the 
mourning dove {Zenaidura macroura) and was readily seen through from below. 
Perhaps fifty small twigs and a dozen or two pine needles were used, loosel}' laid to- 
gether in the usual dove-like way. Its measurements were as follows: Diameter, 
outside, 6x4 inches, inside, 5x4 inches; depth, outside, one inch and inside, three- 
eighths of an inch. It was scarcely more than a rude platform, the depression be- 
ing caused by the bird’s weight. 
On June 24, 1902, Mr. Dixon, on visiting the same locality, was surprised to 
flush a bird again from the same nest, and took therefrom a second egg, which was 
too far advanced in incubation to be preserved. The measurements of the first egg 
were 1.60x1.10 inches; those of the second were not obtained. This nest was at the 
very highest fringe of the oaks where they meet the pines, elevation about 3,250 
teet. Another nest taken by the same collector on May 3, 1901, also at about the 
same elevation on Pine Mt., contained two fresh eggs. This likewise was in a black 
oak on the lower fringe of pines, and was composed of the same scant material, a 
few twigs and pine needles, and was placed seventeen feet from the ground. No 
measurements of this nest were taken. The dimensions of the eggs are 1.56x1.08 
and 1.55x1.10 inches. In this case also the bird was flushed from the nest. 
As these nests are apparently alwa3's placed at some little distance from the 
ground, and are mere platforms and hard to see owing to the surrounding foliage, 
they are not readily discovered except by the actual flushing of the bird. One must 
be quick even to see the bird. It does not flutter along the ground in the manner 
of the mourning dove nor does it sit on a nearby branch and coo, but is off like a 
shot and it requires a pretty sharp eye to follow its flight through the trees. 
Palomar and Cuyamaca Mountains are several thousand feet higher than Pine 
Mt., where these nests were found, and partake more of the higher transition and 
Boreal which is supposed to be the breeding area of this species. I believe that a 
diligent search there would prove them a much more abundant resident species than 
the data at present attainable would lead one to suppose. 
