Pigeon (order Columbiformes):
Any of several hundred species of birds constituting the family Columbidae. Smaller forms are usually called doves, larger forms pigeons. An exception is the white domestic pigeon, the symbol known as the “dove of peace” (see domestic pigeon). Pigeons occur worldwide except in the coldest regions and the most remote islands. About 250 species are known; two-thirds of them occur in tropical Southeast Asia, Australia, and the islands of the western Pacific, but the family also has many members in Africa and South America and a few in temperate Eurasia and North America.
