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wood pigeon

Obs.

DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

Entry from the DCHP-1 (pre-1967)

This entry may contain outdated or offensive information, terms, and examples.

a migratory wild pigeon, Ectopistes migratorius, which appeared in immense flocks during August up to the late 19th century, becoming extinct by 1914.

See: passenger pigeon

Quotations

1792

Talbot gave a shilling to liberate some wood pigeons I must have otherwise seen and heard fluttering most disagreeably.

1820

I soon perceived that a flock of wood pigeons had settled themselves all round about me. . . .

1897

The wild wood pigeons used to visit us from the south in tens of thousands in my early life; so thick did they fly that they could be killed with clubs and sticks . . . of late, that is, for twenty or thirty years, they seem to have left us.

1959

Passenger Pigeon [was also called] wood pigeon ("Hudson Bay," Ont.).