Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 April 1881 — Odd Facts about Pigeons. [ARTICLE]

Odd Facts about Pigeons.

“That's the only bird that ever created a boom)” a park-keeper said, referring to a fine, large blue bird with an immense crown of feathers waving on its head. “How so?” “Because that’s the only sound it. makes. If you didn't see it you would think some one had struck a base drum a quarter of a mile away. It’s a regular boom, boom, and when it makes the noise it bows its head so that its crown sweeps the ground. It's the crowned pigeon from New Zealand, and between this cage and the stuffed birds in the museum, we can show nearly every pigeon in the world; and you'd be astonished to see how many different kinds there are. We have pouters, fantails, nuns carriers, and all the fancy breeds alive, besides wood doves and this crowned fellow; and occasionally we have a big flock of wild pigeons here, but the sparrows drive them off. You wouldn’t think a big bird like a pigeon would run from a sparrow, but they do. The little oirds collect in. the trees in crowds, and when a flock of pigeons oome sweeping oyer, they make a rush fox them in a body, and take right hold, tooth and nail, and as the pigeons sweep down to get out of the way, they are literally chased out of the Park.”

In the pigeon case in the. museum are some of the bones of that extinct and much maligned bird, the dodo, the giant of pigeons, being the only specimen in the country. Two hundred and fifty years ago they were found in the Mauritius* Islands in great quantities. It was a curious extraordinary long,strong, blue-white bill, only the ends of each mandible are a different color—that of the upper black, that of the nether yellowish—both sharp-pointed and crooked; its gape huge, wide, as being naturally voracious. Its body is fat and round, covered with soft gray feathers, after the manner of an ostrich’s on each side. .Instead of hard wing feathers or quills it is furnished with small, sort-feathered wings of a yellowish bird, as large as.a swan. The bill in the case is not unpigeonlike, though one hundred times the size of its modern representation. They were sluggish birds, unable to fly, and laM a single egg about the size of a turkey’s. Brontius, an old Dutch writer of the period, gives the following qhaint account of them: “Thedronte, or dodors, is for bigness, of mean size between an ostrich and a turkey, from which it partly differs in shape and partly agrees with them, especially with the African ostriches, if you consider the rump, quills ind leathers, so that it was like a pigmy ainon- them, if you regard shortness of legs. It hath a great ill-favored head, with a kind of membrane resembling a hood; great black eyes; abending, prominent, fat neck; an ash color, and behind, the rump, instead of a tail, is adorned with five small curled feathers of the same color; four toes on each foot—solid, long, as it were, really armed with strong, black claws.” -They,, at one time were so plentiful that they were killed for the stones that were found in their Stomachs, and on which the sailors sharpened their kpives. Another queer pigeon that lived at that time, and which is now extinct, was the solitaire. It was found on the Island of Rodrigues. It was larger, than a turkey,.and In general respects resembled the dodo. Another was the Nazarene, -that was twice as large as the dodo. But the most remarkable was the didunculus, a living rel- l ative and closely allied to the dodo. The bird was rather larger than our common partridge, and possessed the curious naked skin surrounding the eyes which characterized its ancestor.

One of the finest of the thirty or more different species of pigeons is the Oceanic fruit-bird of the Pelen Islands. There they are found in thousands feeding on nutmegs. They become very fit. and the fat, which has a strong flavor of the nutmeg, is considered a great dainty by many. It is said that they grow so fat that when shot, they fau on the ground and are shattered to pieces by the fall. Not only are they valuable as a means of subsistence, but they seem to have been ap< ointed to help carry out the great laws of nature. It is a well-known fact that the nutmeg has to pass through some chemical process before it will grow, and in the stomachs of these birds,the nutmeg is prepared for reproduction. Among this family of birds the passenger pigeon i one of the most wonderful. Wilson’s description of their camping ground is: “As soon as the young were fully grown, and before they left their nests, numerous parties of the inhabitants from ali parts of the country came with wagons, oxen, beds, cooking utensils, many of them accompanied by the greater part of their families, and encamped for several days at this immense nursery, Several of them informed me that the .noise in the woods was so great as to terrify their horses, and that it was difficult for one person to hear another speak without - bawling in his ear. The ground was strewn with branches, broken limbs, eggs and young squab pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and off which herds of hogs* were fattening. Hawks, buzzards and eagles w ete sailing above in great numbers, and seizing the squabs from their nests at pleasure, while from twenty feet upward, to the top of the trees the view through the trees presented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes of pigeons; their wings roaring like thunder mixed with the crash of falling trees.” It is utterly impossible to estimate the numbers that congregate together. On some trees more than three hundred, nests were found, and the branches were continually falling, o\Ving to the weight of the old birds. The amount consumed by a flock of these birds is wonderful. Wilson calculates that, taking the] breadth of the column of >igeons he saw, to be only one mile, its length to be two hundred and forty miles, and to contain only three

pigeons in each square yard (taking no account of the several strata of birds one above the other), and that each bird consumes half a pint of food daily, all of which assumptions are below the actual amount, the quantity of food consumed in a day would be 17,000,000 bushels. Supposing this column to be one mile in breadth, and flying at the rate of qpe mile a minute for four hours, and supposing that each square yard contains three pigeons, the square yards in the whole space multiplied toy three, would give 2,230,272*000 birds f In the Kentucky country, where they are mostly found, they appear suddenly, darkening tiie sky so completely all work and labor is given np until they have passed. The air is literally filled with pigeons, and in some places mortars are used to bring down hundreds at one discharge. Their rapidity of flight Is wonderful. Tbe coinage nickels has been suspended.