Evening star., 1944-12-15
This and That
BIZ Charles E. TrdcepeN.

A pleasant occasional visitor to the
bird feeding station is the mourning, or
turtle, dove.
This relative of the extinct passenger
pigeon remarkably resembles that bird
of sad memory, although it is much
smaller
The dove Is a common summer resi-
dent, and some stay in winter. F1ocks
of as many as 40 have been reported
from Arlington County.
The time will come, no doubt. when it,
too, will go the way of its cousin
The last authentic report of a pas
senger pigeon hereabouts was on May
2, 1891 reported by R. w. Shufeldt,
Miss May Thatcher Cooke. in the
proceedings of the Biological Society of
Washington, says that the last large
flock of the passenger pigeons was seen
previous to 1850.
lows:
Passenger pigeons reported September
18, 1877; April 3, 1887, by H. w. Henshaw;
September IL. 1889, by w. Palmer, and
October l9, 1889, by j. D. Higgins.
A flock of about a dozen, one taken,
near Jefferson. Md, fall of 1889; a small
flock, two or three taken, near Laurel,
fall of 1889. by George Marshall.
The one seen by DR.. Shufeldt on May
2, 1891, was the last. Many reports of
them came in, later, but they were
never authenticated
1t was not, indeed, until about 1914
that the reports of passenger pigeons
entirely ceased.
Even now one may expect to hear
from some one that he has seen a pas
enger pigeon.
The passenger pigeon was about II
inches long, with colors of soft gray and
pink, By and large, it much resembled
our turtle dove, which is about IL inches
long
Dr. Shufeldt took photograph of the
last passenger pigeon, which died in the
Cincinnati Zoo in 1914
Edward H. Forbush said: ut often is
asked how it was possible for man to
XIII them all. 1t was not possible, nor
was it requisite that he should do so
In order to exterminate them. All that
was required to bring about this result
was to destroy large part of the young
birds Matched each year. Nature cut
off the rest. She always eliminates a
large share of the young of all creatures
The greater part Of the passenger pig
cons taken in summer and fall were
young birds. The squads were sought
because they brought high price in the
market. The young when out of the
nest were less experienced than the
adults, and therefore more easily taken
The pigeons were not immortal
Even if undisturbed by man, they gave
up the ghost in few years; but they
were not undisturbed We did
our best to exterminate both old and
young, and we succeeded. The expla-
nation is SO simple that all talk of 'mys-
tery' seems sadly out of place"
X x *
Our mourning dove, then, in addition
to being beautiful and interesting spe-
cies, brings us as close a picture of the
passenger pigeon as we will ever have
alive.
He eats cracked corn, used in various
scratch feeds and baby chick feed >
He is not so fond of the various mixtures
sold as "wildbird food"
At times he eats bread He is a peace
full feeder with smaller birds. but stands
for no monkey shines from the blue
jays, which he will run away at every
opportunity. The gentle dove" as he
is so often called, proves himself any,
thing but gentle at such times
Doves have short legs and resemble
little cruisers, as they come across the
lawn in summer. In winter few birds
make prettier picture Then the pink
tones OF the breast show up splendidly.