252 
COLUM BIFORMES 
Its long-drawn mournful note of “Oh-woe-woe-woe” is well known 
and has given the name to the species. It has a peculiar quality like that 
produced by blowing softly into the neck of an empty bottle. 
Economic Status. Though feeding largely upon mast (acorns, beech- 
nuts, and other soft-shelled tree-fruit) it eats grain readily and a con- 
siderable amount of insect food and weed-seed. Most of the grain it takes 
is waste. Seed properly planted and covered is absolutely safe from it 
for it never scratches. No serious unprevent able harm can be proved 
against it and the good it does is positive. 
315. Passenger Pigeon, wild pigeon, le pigeon voyageur (La Tourte). Ecto- 
pistes migratorius. L, 16 -29. Plate XXX B. Larger than the Mourning Dove, but smaller 
than the Band-tailed, though measuring more through its long, tapering tail (Figure 375). 
Much like the Mourning Dove in colour and outline, but more richly coloured. 
Figure 375 
Tail of Passenger Pigeon funder side); scale, $. 
Distinctions, 'the Passenger Pigeon was never more than a straggler west of the 
mountains, but as the Mourning Dove has been so often mistaken for it the following 
distinctions should be noted. It was considerably larger than the Mourning Dove — 
wing 8 inches or over instead of 6 inches or under. Females and juveniles similar to the 
Mourning Dove in colour, but the adult male had a decidedly red throat and breast, was 
slate-blue on head and back, and never had the small black spot below the ear that is 
characteristic of the Mourning Dove. Only two middle tail feathers were dark to the 
tip instead of four (Compare Figure 375 with 374). 
Field Marks. The species being extinct, field marks are unnecessary. 
Nesting. In rough nest of sticks in trees, in large communities. 
Distribution. Bred formerly in the wooded sections of Canada east of the mountains, 
from Mackenzie Valley to the east coast and southward. Wintered in the southern states. 
Once common in Manitoba, but last recorded in 1898. Records for the southern parts of 
the other Prairie Provinces are few and unsatisfactory. The species is now extinct, the 
last bird having died in captivity in 1914. 
The immense flocks of Passenger Pigeons that once darkened the air 
were one of the wonders of America. The descriptions of their number, if 
they were not circumstantial and well vouched for by men of undoubted 
veracity, would sound like wild stretches of the imagination; flocks, so 
dense that haphazard shots into them would bring down numbers, travelled 
rapidly with a front miles in width and so long that it took hours to pass a 
given point. Audubon estimates one such flock as containing over a 
billion birds, basing his figures upon the density and area of the congre- 
gation and not by mere guess. They bred in dense rookeries where their 
weight often broke the branches from forest trees. Trees containing 
their nests were cut down and though each nest contained only one squab 
there were so many that the pigs were turned in to feed upon them. Later, 
the netting of pigeons was the occupation of professional fowlers who 
shipped their proceeds by the car-load to the centres of population. Of 
course, not even the immense numbers of the Passenger Pigeons could 
stand such attacks without diminution. To suggest a halt in the proceed- 
ings at that time, however, aroused nothing but ridicule, their numbers 
