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Passenger Pigeon — Part 2
Images coming soon.
Patterns of all the domestic virtues, proverbially loving, gentle birds, anatomists tell us their blandness is due not to the cultivation of their moral nature, but to the absence of the gall-bladder!
The Band-tailed, or White-collared Pigeon (Columba fasciata), a large, stout species distributed over the western United States and from British Columbia to Mexico, inhabits chiefly those mountainous regions where acorns, its favorite food, can be secured. The male has head, neck, and under parts purplish wine red, fading below; a distinct white half collar, with some exquisite metallic scales on it; his lower back, sides of body, and wing linings slaty blue; the back and shoulders lustrous dark greenish brown; yellow feet and bill; a red ring around eye; and the bluish ash tail crossed at the middle with a black bar. The female either lacks the white collar or it is obscure, and her general coloring is much duller. Like the passenger pigeon, this bird sometimes lives in flocks of vast extent, its habits generally according with those previously described.
Mourning Dove (The account of the Mourning Dove, which, in a work scientifically classified, belongs in its present position, is reprinted from the author's "Bird Neighbors," which was written without a plan for a supplementary companion volume.)
(Zenaidura macroura)
The beautiful, soft colored plumage of this incessant and rather melancholy love-maker is not on public exhibition. To see it we must trace the a-coo-o, coo-o, coo-oo, coo-o to its source in the thick foliage in some tree in an out-of-the-way corner of the farm, or to an evergreen near the edge of the woods. The slow, plaintive notes, more like a dirge than a love song, penetrate to a surprising distance. They may not always be the same lovers we hear from April to the end of summer, but surely the sound seems to indicate that they are. The dove is a shy bird, attached to its gentle and refined mate with a devotion that has passed into a proverb, but caring little or nothing for the society of other feathered friends, and very little for its own kind, unless after the nesting season has passed. In this respect it differs widely from its cousins, the wild pigeons, flocks of which, numbering many millions, are recorded by Wilson and other early writers before the days when netting these birds became so fatally profitable.
What the dove finds to ardently adore in the "shiftless housewife," as Mrs. Wright calls his lady-love, must pass the comprehension of the phoebe, which constructs such an exquisite home, or of a bustling, energetic Jenny Wren, that "looketh well to the ways of her household and eateth not the bread of idleness." She is a flabby, spineless bundle of flesh and pretty feathers, gentle and refined in manners, but slack and incompetent in all she does. Her nest consists of a few loose sticks, without rim or lining; and when her two babies emerge from the white eggs, that somehow do not fall through or roll out of the rickety lattice, their tender little naked bodies must suffer from many bruises. We are almost inclined to blame the inconsiderate mother for allowing her offspring to enter the world unclothed-obviously not her fault, though she is capable of just such negligence. Fortunate are the baby doves when their lazy mother scatters her makeshift nest on top of one that a robin has deserted, as she frequently does. It is almost excusable to take her young birds and rear them in captivity, where they invariably thrive, mate, and live happily, unless death comes to one, when the other often refuses food and grieves its life away.
In the wild state, when the nesting season approaches, both birds make curious acrobatic flights above the tree-tops; then, after a short sail in midair, they return to their perch. This appears to be their only giddiness and frivolity, unless a dustbath in the country road might be considered a dissipation.
In the autumn a few pairs of doves show slight gregarious tendencies, feeding amiably together in the grain fields and retiring to the same roost at sundown.
PART IV
BIRDS OF PREY
Vultures
Kites
Hawks
Eagles
Owls
BIRDS OF PREY
(Order Raptores)
These rapacious birds, whose entire structure indicates strength, ferocity, carnivorous appetite, and powerful flight, have, for their diagnostic features, strong, hooked bills, covered toward the base with a cere, or membrane, through which the nostrils open; four long, strong toes, flexibly jointed to secure greatest grasping power, and fitted with sharp, curved nails or talons; long, ample wings and muscular legs, partly feathered. The young, though not naked when hatched, as are most altricial birds, remain in the nest, dependent on their parents, for a long time.