Part 89

Their notes are said to closely resemble the cooing of the Carolina Dove, but are somewhat more soft and tender. During midday, when the heat in the central parts of the keys is intense, these birds are silent.

Their flesh was found to be excellent, and they were generally very fat. They fed on grass seeds, on the leaves of certain aromatic plants, and on various kinds of berries,—among others, one highly poisonous to man,—and mingle with their food particles of shells and gravel. They have two broods in a season.

According to Mr. Audubon, their eggs measure 1.25 inches in length by .87 of an inch in breadth, and are abruptly pointed at one end. He states that they propagated readily in the aviary of the Earl of Derby, some being let loose in the hope of introducing them into England.

This species, known in Jamaica as the Pea Dove, is not, according to March, gregarious, and, although terrestrial in habits, is often seen and heard on trees, and also roosts there. It nests indiscriminately on the ground or in trees, making a slight platform of sticks and twigs, loosely put together. The eggs are two, oval or roundish-oval in shape, and white. They measure from 1.20 to 1.32 inches in length by an inch in breadth. It is a favorite cage-bird, and though apparently very timid and restless, becomes very tame and docile, and will take grain from the hand or lips of its feeder.

In Santa Cruz it is known as the Mountain Dove, and was there found very common by Mr. Newton. It afforded excellent sport and was very good eating. It was not only numerous on the hills, but was likewise plentiful in all parts of the island sufficiently overgrown with brush. Mr. Newton did not find it so terrestrial in its habits as it is stated to be by some writers. Its flight is said to be remarkably rapid. It breeds from April to the end of July, and is said to build the ordinary Pigeon’s nest,—a mere platform of twigs in a bush or tree at any height from a few feet to twenty. It lays two eggs, which, in Santa Cruz, were found by Mr. Newton to be perfectly white, and not of a drab hue, as stated by Mr. Gosse. The young birds are often taken from the nest and brought up without much difficulty. The cooing of this Dove is stated to much resemble the noise made by sounding a conch-shell.

The eggs of the Zenaida Dove are more rounded in their shape than those of most of our Pigeons, are white, equally obtuse at each end, and measure 1.30 inches in length by .90 in breadth.

GENUS ZENAIDURA, BONAP.

Zenaidura, BONAP. Consp. Avium, II, 1854, 84. (Type, Columba carolinensis, L.) Perissura, CAB. Jour. für Orn. IV, 1856, 111. (Same type.)

GEN. CHAR. Bill weak, black; culmen from frontal feathers about one third the head above. Tarsus not quite as long as middle toe and claw, but considerably longer than the lateral ones; covered anteriorly by a single series of scutellæ. Inner lateral claw considerably longer than outer, and reaching to the base of middle. Wings pointed; second quill longest; first and third nearly equal. Tail very long, equal to the wings; excessively graduated and cuneate, of fourteen feathers.

The fourteen tail-feathers render this genus very conspicuous among the North American doves. It was formerly placed with the Passenger-Pigeon in Ectopistes, but has nothing in common with it but the lengthened tail, as it belongs to a different subfamily. At present three species are known, two of them recently described. Unless Z. yucatanensis proves to be a hybrid between Zenaida amabilis and Zenaidura carolinensis, it may be expedient to merge Zenaida and Zenaidura into one, since, if yucatanensis prove to be a permanent form, the additional pair of tail-feathers is all that is left to characterize Zenaidura; and when we consider that the wedge-tailed Haliætus pelagicus has fourteen tail-feathers, while the round-tailed species have only twelve, it seems reasonable to consider the difference as merely specific in this case also.

Zenaidura carolinensis.]

=A.= Secondaries broadly tipped with white.

=Z. yucatanensis.= Beneath entirely deep purplish-vinaceous. Wing, 6.00; tail, 4.90; culmen, .58; tarsus, .85; middle toe, .90. Hab. Yucatan.

=B.= Secondaries not tipped with white.

=Z. carolinensis.= Beneath light purplish-vinaceous anteriorly; crissum nearly white. Wing, 5.90; tail, 6.00; culmen, .50; tarsus, .86; middle toe, .82. Hab. Whole of North America, south to Panama; West Indies.

=Z. graysoni.= Beneath entirely uniform deep reddish-cinnamon. Wing, 6.00; tail, 5.15; culmen, .84; tarsus, 1.08; middle toe, .97. Hab. Socorro Island, western coast of Mexico.

Zenaidura carolinensis, BONAP.

CAROLINA OR COMMON DOVE.

Columba carolinensis, LINNÆUS, Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 286, No. 37.—LATHAM, Ind. II, 1790, 613.—WILSON, Am. Orn. V, 1812, 91, pl. xliii.—AUD. Orn. Biog. I, 1831, 91; V, 1839, 555, pl. xvii.—NUTTALL, Man. I, 1832, 626. Turtur carolinensis, BRISSON, I, 110, pl. viii. Ectopistes carolinensis, RICH. List, 1837.—BON. Birds Amer. V, 1842, 36, pl. cclxxxvi. Zenaidura carolinensis, BONAP. Consp. Av. II, 1854, 84 (type).—BAIRD, Birds N. Am. 1858, 604.—REICHENB. Handb. Taub. 19, tab. 249, f. 1380–82.—COOP. & SUCKL. 218.—COOP. Orn. Cal. I, 1870, 512. Perissura carolinensis, CAB. Cab. Jour. 1856, 111, 112 (type). Columba marginata, LINN. Syst. Nat. I, 1766, 286, No. 40 (best description).—WAGLER, Syst. Av. 1827, No. 91.—IB. Isis, 1831, 519. Ectopistes marginata, GRAY, List, Br. Mus. ? Ectopistes marginellus, WOODHOUSE, Pr. A. N. Sc. VI, June, 1852, 104.—IB. Expl. Zuñi & Color. 1853, 93; Birds, pl. v (Canadian river, Ark. Immature bird). ? Zenaidura marginalla, BONAP. Consp. Av. II, 1854, 85.

SP. CHAR. Tail-feathers fourteen. Above bluish, although this is overlaid with light brownish-olive, leaving the blue pure only on the top of the head, the exterior of the wings, and the upper surface of the tail, which is even slightly tinged with this color. The entire head, except the vertex, the sides of the neck, and the under parts generally, light brownish-vinaceous, strongly tinged with purple on the breast, becoming lighter behind, and passing into brownish-yellow or creamy-ochraceous on the anal region, tibiæ, and under tail-coverts. Sides of the neck with a patch of metallic purplish-red. Sides of body and inside of wings clear light blue. Wing-coverts and scapulars spotted with black, mostly concealed, and a small oblong patch of the same, with a steel-blue reflection, below the ear. Tail-feathers seen from below blackish, the outer web of outermost white, the others tipped with the same, the color becoming more and more bluish to the innermost, which is brown. Seen from above there is the same gradation from white to light blue in the tips; the rest of the feather, however, is blue, with a bar of black anterior to the light tip, which runs a little forward along the margin and shaft of the feather. In the sixth feather the color is uniform bluish, with this bar; the seventh is without a bar. Bill black, the angle of the mouth carmine. Female smaller, and with less red beneath. Length of male, 12.85; wing, 5.75; tail, 6.70. Bare orbits pale blue, with a green tint; iris dark brown; feet lake-red. Young with the feathers of upper parts and jugulum margined with paler; the tints more brownish.

HAB. Throughout United States from Atlantic to Pacific. Cuba; Middle America to Panama. Localities: Oaxaca (SCL. 1859, 391); Cordova (1856, 359); Guatemala (Ibis, I, 222); Cuba (CAB. J. IV, III; GUNDL. Rep. I, 1866, 301); Honduras (TAYLOR, Ibis, II, 227); Southeastern Texas (DRESSER, Ibis, 1866, 24, breeds); Fort Whipple, Arizona (COUES, P. A. N. S. 1866, 93); Costa Rica (LAWR. IX, 139); Yucatan (IX, 207).

Specimens from the whole of North America, south to Costa Rica and the West India Islands, are identical in colors and proportions.

Specimens from Cuba, Jamaica, and other West India Islands, resemble examples from the eastern United States, but are considerably smaller, the wing measuring less than 5.50 inches. The dark blotches on the wings appear of unusual size, the rufous tinge on the back is more decided, and the under parts are more deeply colored. In these respects they resemble somewhat skins from Cape St. Lucas, collected by Mr. Xantus.

HABITS. The Carolina Dove is found throughout the United States, in nearly all parts, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada, and from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific. It occurs also in the West Indies, in Mexico, and in Central America. It is found in the southern part of Maine as far to the eastward as Calais, but was not collected by Mr. Verrill at Norway, and is not known to occur in the northern part of that State. Farther west, it is met with to the Canada line; a few being known to breed near Hamilton, and others to pass the winter near Salt Springs, according to Mr. McIlwraith. They occur with more or less abundance in different parts of Massachusetts, but are generally quite rare except in one or two localities. In nearly all the rest of the United States they are widely and generally distributed, and often abundant. In some parts of the country they are cherished for their confiding trust in the protection of man; while in others they are hunted on account of their delicacy as food, and are very shy and difficult of approach. In Carlisle, Penn., I found them one of the most common birds, frequenting the gardens and orchards, and breeding often in close proximity to the houses. In Western Massachusetts, on the other hand, where they were once quite abundant, they have been so persistently hunted that they are very shy, and have become quite rare.

In Kansas and in Colorado they were frequently found by Mr. Allen, and in the latter region also by Messrs. Aiken and Holden. On the Plains, in the absence of any trees in which to build, they were in the habit of constructing their nests on the ground, in some instances depositing their eggs in a mere depression in the sand, with hardly any pretence for a nest.

This bird was obtained in Tamaulipas, Mexico, by Lieutenant Couch; at Ringgold Barracks, Texas, by Mr. J. H. Clark; near San Elizario, by Dr. Kennerly; and on the Colorado, by Mr. Schott. Mr. Clark found the vicinity of Ringgold Barracks a great resort for many birds of this family for the purpose of nesting; the luxuriant development of the Opuntia, and other vegetation equally impassable, affording the means of defence. Hundreds of at least half a dozen species were to be seen every evening on the banks of the river after water. Lieutenant Couch found it in great numbers from the Rio Grande to beyond the Sierra Madre, generally near the ranches, though often in the forests. It seemed inclined to court the society of man for protection and food. It was also very abundant, according to Dr. Kennerly, in the vicinity of San Elizario, banding in large flocks, and feeding in the wheat and corn fields. It was also observed as far west as Santa Cruz, in Sonora.

Dr. Newberry met with this Dove in all parts of California and Oregon visited by him. Dr. Suckley mentions it as very abundant throughout Washington Territory and Oregon. At Fort Steilacoom it arrives and departs at about the same time as the Columba fasciata. Dr. Cooper states it to be common about prairies and farms of the interior, and probably some remain all winter in the Territory, though they rarely appear at any time near the coast border.

Dr. Kennerly found this species about Bill Williams Fork, in New Mexico, and also in the vicinity of San Antonio, Texas, and along the Gulf coast; but travelling west about two hundred miles from the former place, they seemed suddenly to disappear.