![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() What scientific descriptions we do have come from birds in an aviary, described by Wallace Craig in 1911. When passenger pigeons roosted, they could shear the limbs off trees.Īside from the “ near-deafening noise” of nesting colonies, little is known about the vocalizations of wild passenger pigeons. The female, he notes, has a “cinereous brown upper part of the neck inclining to ash the spot of changeable gold green and carmine much less, and not so brilliant tail-coverts brownish slate naked or bits slate coloured in all other respects like the male in colour, but less vivid, and more tinged with brown the eye not so brilliant an orange.” 5. "ill black nostril covered by a high rounding protuberance eye brilliant fiery orange orbit, or space surrounding it, purplish flesh-coloured skin head, upper part of the neck, and chin, a fine slate blue, lightest on the chin throat, breast and sides, as far as the thighs, a reddish hazel lower part of the neck and sides of the same resplendent changeable gold, green and purplish crimson, the latter most predominant the ground colour slate the plumage of this part is of a peculiar structure, ragged at the ends belly and vent white lower part of the breast fading into a pale vinaceous red thighs the same, legs and feet lake, seamed with white back, rump and tail-coverts, dark slate, spotted on the shoulders with a few scattered marks of black the scapulars tinged with brown greater coverts light slate primaries and secondaries dull black, the former tipt and edged with brownish white tail long, and greatly cunei form, all the feathers tapering towards the point, the two mid dle ones plain deep black, the other five, on each side, hoary white, lightest near the tips, deepening into bluish near the bases, where each is crossed on the inner vane with a broad spot of black, and nearer the root with another of ferruginous pri maries edged with white bastard wing black." In the 1829 book American Ornithology, Alexander Wilson describes the males in great detail: Biospanersity Heritage Library, Flickr // Public Domain ![]()
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