Suzanne Perry, age 10, of Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, for her question:

Why don't pigeons nest in trees like other birds?

Many pigeons do nest in trees and share the woods with the wild birds. Others are city dwellers who insist on sharing man made buildings. Almost all wild animals fear people and shun our crowded cities. But not these pigeons. They boldly beg for food and refuse to be rousted from their perches on city hall, the library and especially from the. ornate stone work atop the churches. Perhaps they choose these unusual homes because they are somewhat like the places where their ancestors lived long ages ago.

There are about 290 members of the pigeon family and originally all of them lived in the wild. However, unlike other wild birds, some of them were naturally fond of people. These were the slatey prey rock dove pigeons of Europe, Asia and Africa. They were cliff dwellers who built their rather shabby nests on the ledges and in the clefts of steep rocks. They were born perchers and the sheer drop to level ground did not bother them at all.

Ages ago, people discovered that these wild rock doves were more than willing to be friendly, especially when handfuls of food were offered. This may have been something to do with their natural character traits. Parent pigeons are perhaps the world's most sentimental honeymooners and exceedingly devoted to their chicks. Apparently they prefer to spend most of their time and energy on family affection. The parents merely gather a few sticks for a makeshift nest. When they have to, they hunt diligently to feed their precious chicks, but they prefer to save this time by cadging handouts from their human friends.

Perhaps people first offered free lunches to entice these rock doves into captivity. Then the tame birds were bred into all sorts of fancy strains. It was discovered that one strain always flew home from afar    and this homing, pigeon was used for carrying messages. Perhaps the wild rock doves cast a bright yellow eye of envy on their tame and partly tame relatives. They also watched people build tall, steep sided buildings, very much like their rocky cliffs.

Nobody knows just when they gave up nesting in the wild and became city dwellers. Maybe the first ones were half tame birds kept on somebody's roof. Perhaps others escaped from cooped up pigeon lofts. In any case, the city pigeon population multiplied and grew bolder. Perhaps some of their wild relatives may have joined the city dwelling flocks.

City pigeons create messy problems    but efforts to roust them usually fail. The pigeons feel quite at home where they are and stubbornly refuse to be evicted. And, pigeons have a lot of strong minded human allies. When a town starts an anti¬pigeon drive, all sorts of pressures and protests rise up to defend these city dwelling birds. It is not likely that many of them will be driven to build nests in the wild woods    at least not in the forseeable future.