The HACKLED GROUND PIGEON (_Callœnas Nicobarica_) is a powerfully-built
bird, with a strong beak, furnished with a soft, conical excrescence
at its base; the feet approximate the gallinaceous type, having stout
tarsi and short toes; the long wings when closed extend almost to the
tip of the rounded tail, which is composed of twelve broad feathers.
The plumage is richly coloured, and so prolonged around the throat as to
form a complete mane or collar. The head, throat, entire under side, and
wings are blackish green; the feathers on the lower part of the body edged
with blue; the longest of the collar-feathers, back, rump, and feathers
of wing-covers are grass-green, with a metallic lustre, the shorter
collar-feathers being of a glossy golden hue, and those of the tail pure
white. The eye is light reddish brown, the beak blackish and the foot
reddish purple. The length is fourteen inches, the breadth across the
wings twenty-nine inches; the wing measures nine inches and a half, and
the tail two inches and two-thirds.
[Illustration: THE HACKLED GROUND PIGEON (_Callœnas Nicobarica_).]
This beautiful bird, according to Jerdon, is met with on the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands, the Merqui Archipelago, the Philippines, and Malaya
generally, usually preferring to settle upon the small, unoccupied
islands. Though, like its congeners, it possesses considerable powers
of flight, it seeks the grain and insects that afford it the means of
subsistence almost exclusively on the ground, upon which it passes the
entire day, only leaving its surface to seek a perch whereon to sleep. We
are without particulars respecting the incubation of this Pigeon, except
that, like the Partridge, it builds its nest upon the ground.
* * * * *
The CROWNED PIGEONS (_Gouræ_), as the largest members of the family of
Pigeons are called, inhabit New Guinea and the neighbouring islands. These
birds exceed the Domestic Fowl in size, and are remarkable for a fan-like
crest with which the head is adorned. Their body is stout; their wings, in
which the secondary quills exceed the primaries in length, are long and
much rounded at the tip; the beak is about half as long as the head, the
foot furnished with long tarsi and short toes, and the slaty-blue plumage
very soft in texture.