ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
THE GULLS AND THEIR ALLIES
THE PIGEONS
(Suborder Columbae)
The Pigeons constitute a very large and varied group of nearly or quite five hundred species, and while there has been more or less disagreement as to their probable affinities and interrelationships, it is beyond question that they form among themselves a relatively compact body.
They are strictly cosmopolitan and appear to have their center of distribution in the Australian region, where three fourths of the genera have representatives, and to which not far from two fifths of the whole number of species are confined.
The reason for their maximum development in this region is probably to be explained by the fact that arboreal predatory animals, such as monkeys, lemurs, cats, weasles, etc., are entirely absent, for Pigeons are particularly weak and defenseless birds, building their rude nests in open situations where their eggs and helpless young are constantly exposed to danger.
Their only enemies in this region are birds of prey, and perhaps for purposes of concealment from these sources the plumage is most frequently green above, but when they are largely relieved from even this danger, as on small islands, the plumage often becomes exceedingly brilliant with patches of blue, red, yellow, and green.
In fact, as Wallace has pointed out, they seem to be especially adapted to conditions of island life, and if we group together the Pacific and Maylayan islands with those of the Mascarene group and the Antilles, we find that they contain nearly as many forms as all the great continents combined.
The continental forms are largely arboreal in habit, but in localities where they are relieved from the ordinary dangers of terrestrial life they have commonly developed into ground-haunting forms; and in extreme cases, where all competition has been removed, they have developed into such gigantic flightless anomalies as the Dodo and Solitaire.
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