32 
THE PASSENGER PIGEON. 
touch, as has been remarked to be the case in the Carolina Turtle-dove. 1 
have only to add, that this species, like others of the same genus, immerses 
its head up to the eyes while drinking. 
In March, 1830, I bought about 350 of these birds in the market of New 
York, at four cents apiece. 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 58th 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 ( Finns 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 
